Dead End
by Gem4
Summary: All forces gather to greet the End of Days. But is everyone fighting for the reason they claim?
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer:  Not mine, never mine.  The characters that is; the story is mine.  But the characters in said story...well, those are the property of a whole bunch of companies and franchises and incorporated people, starting with Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.  Where the legal trail ends, only the PTB's know for sure; I just know I'm nowhere in line.  If I were, I'd have already sued them for character assassination.

Spoilers:  Basically where the 2 timelines finally met up, which was at "Lies My Parents Told Me"/ "Orpheus."  I took one or two (necessary) liberties w/the last part of "Orpheus," however.

Rating:  PG-13

Author's Note:  They call a road a 'dead end' if it only has one outlet.  But that's the point – there's always at least one way out.

Many thanks to my new beta-reader, Seersha, for her help with this story, and an apology to her for any last minute tinkering that may result in typos (those are my bad, not hers).  Also, please pardon any incidental Spuffiness; it is to a purpose bent.

**Dead End**

Part 1 By Gem 

"Four days, Xander.  _ Four days."  Buffy's fingers curled into tightened fists as she anxiously paced her living room floor.  "Where could she have gone that she couldn't find a phone for four whole days?"_

The First was slaying slayers both day and night, minions of darkness were everywhere, even places Buffy knew no one else would believe, and yet Willow felt it was okay to take off with no explanation and only a quick promise to be back as soon as possible.  As soon as possible – Buffy felt a nervous laugh bubble up within her at the idea.  As though any of this were possible...except that it was.

"Buff, you've got to get a grip.  I'd feel better if Willow was home too, but we're just going to have to trust her."

Xander's voice was gentle, but Buffy could hear the underlying thread of panic in his words.  He wasn't just worried about Willow; he was worried about her.  He thought she was going to lose it, do something stupid out of fear, the way he thought she'd done too many times before when faced with loss.  Poor Xander, she thought; he desperately wanted to keep her balanced on that pretty white pedestal he'd mentally built the first day they met, but she kept on slipping up and acting human on him, even though she knew how that scared him.  

Unfortunately, his was not the only expectation she had to meet, and some people preferred her on the tarnished side of iconhood.  The trick was to keep each side seeing what it wanted, or needed, to see.

For now, though, Xander was the issue.  With effort, she calmed herself enough to calm him as well, forcing her feet to stop their restless prowling even if her mind never did.

"I do trust her.  I know she can look out for herself, at least when things are normal.  But things are so very not normal these days," she stressed.  "We have no idea what the First will try next, and even though she knows to be careful, she doesn't know what to be careful about.  None of us do.  That's why we need to stick together."

Xander grimaced as Buffy's words called to mind yet another unresolved issue between them.

"You mean all for one and one for all, even the one who'd happily kill us all?"

Buffy huffed impatiently; this was an all too familiar, and fruitless, argument.  "He has a soul now, Xander.  He won't hurt us."

"Yeah, just like he didn't hurt those people we dug out of that basement.  And who knows what he did before we found out about that little spree."

"The First..."

"...made him do it," Xander finished sharply.  "Yeah, I remember the excuse.  Well you know what?  He seems to be the only one the First made kill anyone.  Even Willow, who's been known to try her hand at an apocalypse or two, could resist, but not our Spikey.  And why is that, Buffy?  Could it be that he enjoyed it?"

She could feel hot words clawing at the back of her throat, clamoring for release.  She had so many things she wanted to tell Xander, things she was sure would make him understand and maybe, finally, make him stop doubting her judgment.  But she couldn't say any of them.  Not now.  Not yet.  

"Xander," she sighed in frustration, "can we stick to worrying about Willow and save the Buffy-bashing for later?"

"I'm not bashing you, Buffy," Xander said quickly.  

"Yeah, you kind of are.  You have to trust me, even if you don't understand why you should.  Can you do that for me?"

"That depends.  Can you do that for Willow?"

Buffy opened her mouth to answer, but suddenly found she had none.  With a growl, she threw herself on the sofa beside Xander.

"I hate it when you do that," she sulked.

"You mean when I'm right?"  He patted her knee.  "Yeah, that always seems to frustrate women.  I'm still not sure why."

She smiled sourly at him.  "And the wonder of it is that you're still single."

* * * * *

The Belvedere moved swiftly through the gathering darkness, if not precisely silently.  Verbal skirmishes had wafted through the open windows and into the night from the moment they had closed the last car door.  At first Angel had tried to referee, with little success.  Then he tried to ignore the tension; that idea worked even less.  

All he wanted was a little quiet time to search his memory yet again for any trace of the past weeks.  Some memory of Angelus, any memory, would help; everything between his shaman-induced dream-come-true and waking up in a cell watching Faith fighting off Connor was still one giant void.  He never thought he'd welcome, even beg to remember what that animal had done, but the not knowing was driving him crazy.

"Are we there yet?"

_And speaking of the scenic route to la-la land_...Angel gritted his teeth and counted to ten, trying not to remember that ten was only slightly more than the number of times one of them had posed that question in the last hour.

"No, not yet" he answered, allowing the edge in his voice to grow more noticeable with each succeeding reply.  Not that it seemed to do any good, but he could dream.  "We're about 5 minutes closer than the last time you asked, which was, gee, five minutes ago.  But no, we're not there yet."

"Jeeze, bite my head off, will you," Faith grumbled, sinking back down to sulk in the corner of the convertible's wide rear bench seat.

"I'm sorry, Faith, but..."

"Find a new question and maybe he won't growl again," Willow suggested over his instinctive apology.  She didn't bother to turn and see how well Faith took her advice; she was under no illusions that the slayer was any more housebroken than she'd ever been.

"I didn't growl," Angel growled.

"Hey, not all of us are looking forward to get back to hellmouth sweet hellmouth, you know.  Some of us want to know when to start being..."

"A bitch?" Willow asked, innocence all but dripping from her voice.  "Too late."

"Listen Sabrina," Faith warned, leaning forward over the tall back of the front seat.  "If you want to start..."

"Faith," Angel said sharply.

"Something you can't finish," Willow countered airily.

"Willow."  

"Oh sweetie, don't make promises you can't keep."  Faith's voice dropped to a low purr.  "I've learned things you've never even dreamed...or maybe you have."

"Okay," Angel broke in hastily.  "That's about as far as I want that line of conversation to go."  He glanced over his shoulder.  "Not in front of Fred," he reminded Faith, nodding his head at the young brunette huddled in the opposite corner of the back seat.

"I don't mind," Fred assured him.  "I think dream interpretation is fascinating.  Unless of course you're looking at them from a Freudian perspective, in which case everything relates to sex.  That can get a little tiresome," she admitted.

Faith sighed noisily, but slid back into her own corner of the car without further comment.  Fred really didn't need any more encouragement and, more importantly, when Angel got that certain tone in his voice, even a slayer knew better than push his buttons.

"I don't understand why you wanted them both in the same car, Angel.  You know they don't get along; it was just asking for trouble."  

Slayers knew, but apparently Seers thought they had all sorts of button-pushing privileges.  Luckily for Cordelia, though, she couldn't reach past her abdomen to score a direct hit.

"I'm sorry the car is so crowded, Cordy," Angel answered.  He glanced at her in the rearview mirror, forcing a half-hearted smile.  "Do you need us to make another stop so you can get out and stretch?"  

After just a few days of Cordelia's attitude, Faith would have welcomed the chance to knock the Seer down a few pegs...or perhaps a staircase.  Still, she wasn't surprised that Angel tried to shrug it off; since the moment Cordy had announced her pregnancy he had been writing her lack of sensitivity off to hormones, though Faith tried to tell him that by that argument she must have been born pregnant.  This was Angel, though, and Faith knew he would be supportive even if it killed him.

Which, unfortunately for Angel, it would not.

"I'm fine," Cordelia answered sharply, disrupting Faith's thoughts.  "I wish everyone would stop treating me like a three-year-old with a hand grenade."  A moment later the Seer regretted her indulgence as she watched the commiserating glances slide from one person to the other.  "I just don't understand why everyone had to come along, like it's a field trip or something," she explained, trying to sound more puzzled than peeved.  

"But we're a team," Fred answered.  She was bewildered by Cordy's attitude, Cordy who had always emphasized their need for unity.  "I know some things have happened lately," her eyes carefully avoided Cordelia's distended abdomen, "but we're still family, right?  We stick together no matter what." 

"With the three of us jammed in this seat, I don't think we have any option but to stick together," Faith said, wriggling in her small corner of the car.

"Yeah, in what universe is it considered a good idea to pack so many of us in one car?" Cordelia asked Angel.  "Couldn't someone," she sneaked a sidelong look at Faith, "have gone with the guys?  You know; if she absolutely, positively had to come with us."

"Who?" Willow asked practically.  She turned around in her seat again to smile at Cordelia.  She too was making an effort to bow to Mother Nature, though not quite so low as Angel.  "You needed the shock absorbers in Angel's car, Fred didn't want to go with Gunn and Wesley in the same car and..."

"And Faith and Willow are here as insurance," Angel finished heavily.  

"No we're not," Faith and Willow protested at the same time.  They shared a quick surprised look, and then Willow continued their mutual thought.  "Angel, you're fine.  Angelus is gone, and he can't get out again.  Ever."  She pursed her lips for an instant and then amended her comment.  "At least, if you get your booster incantation every six months or so he can't.  That sanctuary spell works, I promise."

"And hey, third time's a charm, right?" Faith offered.  

"Actually that's not always..." Willow began.

"Willow," Angel said, too absorbed in his own troubled thoughts to realize he was interrupting her.  "I appreciate how hard you and Lorne worked on that spell; I really do."  He darted a quick glance at her, hoping to telegraph his sincerity with his eyes as well as his words.  "It's not that I don't trust it, or you.  But every time Angelus gets out...it just takes a while before I can really feel...secure...again."  

"Hey Angel, if anyone gets that, I do."  Faith leaned forward again, resting her hand lightly on his broad shoulder.  "But we're here to help you, and knowing it can never happen again has just got to make things a little easier, doesn't it?  I know I'd like that kind of guarantee."

"Wouldn't we all?"  Cordelia flashed a sugary sweet smile at the slayer.  "Tell me again why we didn't just drop you off at some nice state pen on the way to Sunnydale?"

"And again with the territory we've already covered," Angel said under his breath.  In a louder, but deliberately mild tone, he continued, "Until we can find a spell that will let us break her back into prison without anyone remembering she was gone, we're keeping her with us.  She doesn't deserve to be punished for saving the world from Angelus."

"She had help, you know."  

"You could help me too, Glinda," Faith suggested.  She ignored Cordelia's snort of protest; she knew perfectly well Willow wasn't the one the Seer had been referring to, but it was always fun to yank her chain.  "If you're so all powerful and all, should be a piece of cake to make people forget my bright and shining face wasn't under their noses the whole time."

Willow smiled serenely at Faith, reminding herself that this was only a temporary alliance.  Soon Faith would become Angel's problem again, not hers.  Or possibly the world would end.  Either way she wouldn't have to make nice for long.

"You have no idea what kind of power I can access, Faith.  But I'm not manipulating peoples' minds just for you.  Sorry."  She glanced anxiously at Angel, suddenly concerned he would be hurt by her refusal.  Faith's dubiously sensitive feelings were one thing, but Angel did matter to her.  "I really am sorry, Angel.  It's just too dangerous."

"We'll figure something out, Faith," Angel promised.  "I owe you a lot more than that."

The slayer smiled at him in the mirror, or at least she smiled at where he should have been in the mirror.  Every time he spoke in that reassuring 'big brother' tone she whispered another silent thanks that she could no longer hear any trace of Angelus in his voice.  

"Relax, big guy.  We're just working our way towards even, but it's a long road."

"Welcome to Sunnydale."

"That about says it," Angel agreed ruefully.  "Even I won't live long enough to feel like I've broke even here."

"No, the sign," Fred explained, pointing out the back window.  "It said: 'Welcome to Sunnydale'."

"We're home," Cordelia said softly, rubbing her swollen abdomen.

"Home," Willow echoed, thinking of all that lay ahead of them in Sunnydale.  Betrayals, machinations, ugly confrontations and almost certainly bloodshed.  And then they had to deal with The First.

"Umm, Angel," the witch began hesitantly, "before we actually get to Buffy's house, there's some things I probably ought to warn you about."  

"Things?"

She bit her lip.  Buffy was going to kill her for interfering; she knew that.  It didn't matter that it was for the Slayer's own good, or even that it was ultimately for the good of the world.  It only mattered that Willow had taken a step away from Buffy's largely unshared plan, and broken a major rule of the girl code at the same time, by asking her friend's ex for help.  And if she wanted to prevent open demon warfare in the living room, privacy was also a dead, or rather undead, issue.  

The only question now was what she wanted to be the first sin listed in her Crimes Against the Sisterhood.  

"Yeah," she answered, decision made.  "Things like...Spike.  And Buffy.  Which is to say Spike and Buffy."

* * * * *

"You're not going to sit here all night again waiting for a phone call from the witch, are you?"

Buffy glanced up from the magazine she was pretending to read.  Spike was standing before her dressed for patrol and practically vibrating with impatience.

"I didn't sit here all night last night," she said carefully.  "I just happened to go out on my own, after you'd left."  The same way she'd planned to patrol tonight if she could slip away, though her odds weren't looking so good at the moment.

A scowl flickered across the vampire's face, an expression so fleeting that once she might have not even noticed it.

"What'd you want to do that for?" he asked, both tone and lower lip now demonstrating the faintest of pouts.  "You know you shouldn't go out on your own, what with The First being out and about too.  You need me with you, to protect you."

She knew she shouldn't, but the words sprang out of her mouth before she could stop them.  "Protect me?"

"The only thing Buffy really needs to be protected from is you."  Xander stalked into the living room.  "And I do mean 'thing'."

"Xander," Buffy sighed, preparing for battle once again.  Any further protests, however, were wiped out by the sound of the front door opening.  All of the resident slayers-in-training were upstairs, Giles was on the road gathering more, Dawn was staying (against Buffy's better judgment) at a friend's house for the night, Anya had gone home and Andrew never left the house.   Xander and Spike, of course, were in the living room with her, which left...

"Willow?" 

"Hey," Willow called out in return.  "I'm home.  And, umm..."

She stepped into the living room just as Buffy and Xander were trying to meet her in the foyer, causing a collision in the archway.

"I've brought guests," Willow finished weakly, wincing as she saw Buffy staring up at Angel in bemusement from the unexpected shelter of his arms.

"Buffy."  

It took all his strength, but Angel moved his hands from his back to her arms and gently pushed her away from him.  

"It's good to see you."  

Despite his polite words his eyes were very dark and shuttered, revealing nothing of his true feelings about being there.  It wasn't hard to mask what he wasn't even sure of himself.

"Angel," Buffy breathed in return.  It was always hard seeing him again, especially unexpectedly, and these days she deserved extra style points if she could acknowledge the effect he still had on her without calling attention to it.  "It's, umm, surprising to see you.  Not bad surprise type of surprise, but..."

"No, that would be Faith," Xander said flatly, stepping away from the dark-haired slayer he had crashed into.  "Aren't you supposed to be busy carving a forklift out of a soup spoon or something these days?"

She smiled slowly at him as she drawled, "I never was much good in shop class." 

Buffy suddenly became aware of her old nemesis' presence, as well as the company she was keeping.  She could feel her spine straightening as every muscle poised for attack, though she didn't allow herself to question what they would really be fighting for. 

"The 'class' part is probably what tripped you up, Faith." 

Angel closed his eyes and rubbed his thumb and forefinger fretfully over his brow.  "And so it begins," he murmured to no one in particular.

"Well, well.  Isn't this the cozy little homecoming?"  

Spike's voice was sharp, and very close to Buffy.  Angel opened his eyes to find his childe standing directly behind the Slayer, one hand possessively clenching her shoulder.

"Nice of you to drop in on me and the missus, but you really should have called first."

"Spike," Buffy said quickly, "not now."  She chewed on her lower lip, trying to find a way to soften the meaning of Spike's words without arousing his jealousy.  Unfortunately, nothing was springing to mind.

"I'll be damned," Faith said, sounding almost as stunned as Angel felt.  "Little Wendy the Witch was right."  Without conscious thought, the dark-haired slayer moved closer to Angel in a show of solidarity.

"Red been singing my praises to strangers now?"

Faith's brow wrinkled in confusion.  "Oh we're hardly strangers, Bleach Boy."  Suddenly she realized why he didn't remember her, and she felt a flash of pity for the girl she'd always envied.  "But better men than you have made the same mistake."

Buffy felt events spinning rapidly out of her control, a situation she could no longer tolerate.  "What is going on here?" she snapped at Willow.  "You disappear for four days without a word and then you come back with Angel and Faith in tow?  What were you thinking?"

"I went to LA," Willow began.

"May I say the 'duh' here, or do you want the honors, Buff?"  Xander leaned against the archway and crossed his arms over his chest, trying to appear casual as he awaited Willow's explanation.  He was an adult now, and Angel wasn't the only one who could play Mr. Cool these days, even if he did have the best body temp for it.

"They...needed me," Willow said evasively, stealing a quick glance at Angel's guarded face.  "They needed my help and then after I helped them I thought maybe they could help us.  You know, with The First.  And they all agreed, so..."

"All?" Buffy asked quickly, looking from Angel to Faith in confusion.  Two hardly seemed like an 'all' to her.

"All," Angel agreed quietly, nodding at Faith.  

The slayer moved quickly to the front door and opened it up, raising her finger to her lips to form a shrill whistle.  She started to turn back to the living room, the faintest trace of her old mocking smile on her lips, when a pounding sound on the staircase made her snap her head in that direction.

* * * * *

Faith stared at the eight girls crowding into the hallway, her mind telling her she knew none of them, while her slayer senses were tingling with a half-remembered feeling. 

"What's up, B?  Running a boarding house to make ends meet?  Or wait, this is California; is it a commune?"

"Faith, meet your successors."  Buffy waved a hand at the girls.  "Girls, this is Faith, the, umm, other Slayer."

"Gee, thanks for the intro."  She held up her thumb and forefinger, the tips poised just millimeters apart.  "Little short on the warm, but definitely fuzzy."

Buffy smiled sourly at Faith; now was no time to indulge anyone's finer feelings, least of all Faith's.  "Assuming they all survive the battle with the First, these girls will be the ones to take over after you and I figure out ways to die and stay that way."

"No shit?"  Faith looked inexplicably pleased.  "I'll be damned – I crashed a family reunion."

"Just part of one."  Buffy glanced up the empty staircase.  "The rest of them must be asleep already."

"I love it," Faith crowed.  "Buffy the Vampire Slaying Den Mother.  Joyce must be so proud."  Her face changed the instant the words left her mouth, even before she saw the blow reflected in Buffy's wide hazel eyes.  "Oh god, B, I'm sorry.  I forgot your about mom...you know, that she was..."

"Dead?" Buffy said flatly.

Though Faith's last encounter with Joyce had been fairly antagonistic, what with all the bondage and threats of violence, deep down the slayer had actually liked Buffy's mother.  When Angel told her that Joyce had died, Faith was surprised to find herself trying to remember prayers her own mother had beaten out of her years before.

"I am so sorry," she repeated.

"Sounds more like jealousy to me, pet," Spike purred.  Faith might have been a stranger to him, but he knew her well from what the others had let slip, and he knew what buttons to push.  "Not every mum would rather cut off her hand than have the likes of you hanging off it."

"Spike, that's enough!"

The vampire was startled, and then angry, when he realized the censure had come in stereo, and from the two people he least wanted on the same wavelength.  But before he could frame a blistering retort to his sire that ignored Buffy's participation in the reprimand, Kennedy had joined in the apparent 'let's humiliate Spike because he's here' conspiracy.

She had broken free from the SIT pack in the hallway to greet her girlfriend, passing by the strange slayer without a second glance.  But she could not ignore the call of her blood so easily.

"Who's he?"  Kennedy jerked her head at Angel as she skidded to a halt just before she reached Willow's side.  "I'm getting a feeling," her forehead wrinkled, "...he's a vampire."

"Another one?" Annabelle backed up a few steps closer to the stairs and peered at Angel in confusion.  This house seemed to have more resident vampires than the cemetery.

Molly appealed to Willow as the voice of reason in tumultuous times.  "Does she invite them all home instead of killing them?" 

"Or is it only the guys?" Rona guessed.  "Because...and pardon me for pointing this out...that's just sad."

Xander was seriously enjoying the sight of Spike's teeth tearing at his own skin for a change; in fact he was having so much fun that if he were Angel he'd be really worried about the state of his soul by now.  

"Ladies, ladies; this isn't just _a vampire."  He smiled broadly at Spike, though he waved his hand in Angel's direction.  "This is _the _vampire.  Buffy's vampire."_

"Oh," breathed Annabelle, moving a little closer to the action again.  "So this is Angel."  

"We've heard all about you," Amanda explained, thinking of Dawn's countless stories of her big sister's ill-fated romance.

"Not quite all," Kennedy corrected, as she looked Angel up and down.  Giving a final nod of approval when she was done, she added, "But this explains a lot."

"You should feel flattered."  Rona waved her index finger at the vampire.  "Cause you are so not her type."

Xander broke out in open laughter at that point, though it quickly became a choking gasp for air as Wesley ushered Cordelia through the front door.

"Good evening all," Wesley said formally, stepping back to allow the rest of the A.I. team filtered in the doorway.  "Sorry to drop in unannounced."

* * * * *

Buffy stared as stranger after stranger trooped into her house.  From what Angel had told her the last time he was in Sunnydale, she knew the young black man must be Gunn.  And the green-skinned demon had to be the Lorne Willow mentioned after her first trip to LA two years ago.  And the girl with the brown hair must be Fred; Willow had mentioned her too.  But the teenage boy was completely unfamiliar, and as for the other two...Buffy could no longer claim to know them either, so much had they changed.

Even if Wesley hadn't been sent to replace Giles, and even if he hadn't been a stuffed shirt in the best Quentin Travers tradition, Buffy still would have had a problem seeing him as "a guy" when they first met.  His position as her Watcher automatically placed him somewhere between teachers and parents on the list of people who thought they had the right to tell her what to do...like that was ever a turn on.  

But this Wesley, this scruffy, slightly dangerous looking man was a world away from the gangly bundle of nerves that she remembered.  This was a Wesley who might have actually given Angel a run for his money in her wayward youth.

Well, okay, so probably not, she silently admitted a moment later, but at least he would have shown up on the radar.

"Holy hormones, Batman," Xander yelped, interrupting her bemused inventory of the new and improved Mr. Wyndham-Pryce.  

Showing up on radar would not be a problem for Cordelia, Buffy reflected guiltily when she saw what, or rather who, had prompted Xander's comment.  Finding a radar screen to fit the former Queen C, on the other hand...now that would be a challenge.  __

"Okay, either Cordy finally found a sugar daddy who's actually made of sugar, or she's pregnant."  Xander pointed in amazement at his ex-girlfriend's distended abdomen.  "How did that happen?"

Forget 'how;' Buffy wanted to know 'when.'   She barely had time to shower these days; how did Cordy manage to fit sex into the schedule?  Then, surveying Wesley, the young man she assumed to be Gunn, the strange boy, and the green-skinned demon, the word 'who' suddenly blotted out all other logistical questions.

"I just knew you weren't paying attention to anything but Buffy's legs in Biology, Harris."  Cordelia moved slowly towards the living room, searching for a place to sit down.  "Though I'm still not sure how you could tell them apart from the frog's."

"Meow," Kennedy murmured into Willow's ear.

"You have no idea," Willow whispered back.

Xander tried to recover his equilibrium in the face of Cordelia's stomach.  "So who's the poor son of a...lucky dog who's out buying cigars?"

"We don't know exact..." Angel began, but Connor interrupted him before he could finish.

"It's my child."  He eyed his father defiantly, daring him to object.

"Connor," his father sighed, right on cue, "we've been over this.  There's no way it could be yours, at least not if it's...human.  There hasn't been enough time."

"Do you really think I'd believe you over Cordy?"  Connor turned his back on Angel, making a great show of helping Cordelia to sit down on the sofa.

"Did I actually need to know this kid's name?" Xander asked Willow.  "Cause I'm guessing Angel's not going to let him live long anyway."

"This is Connor," Angel said, allowing only the slightest hesitation to show in his voice.  But his eyes, locked on Buffy's, were a completely different story.  "He's my son."

* * * * *

"Your son?"  Buffy stared blankly at Angel as two words never meant to coexist arranged and rearranged themselves in her head.  "As in 'Buffy, you know that vampires can't...'?  That kind of son?"

She wasn't going to hit him.  Even if it would feel really, really good to knock that guilty look out of his eyes and right down his throat, she wasn't going to hit him.

Yet.

"Connor, this is Buffy.  Buffy Summers," Angel said hastily.  "And Xander Harris...and I'm afraid I don't know any of these girls, but..."

"Angel's gonna be a grandpa?"  

Xander couldn't help his outburst, or the laugh rising in his throat.  The latter died a quick death, however, under the combined glares of Buffy and Angel.  Suddenly he found himself wishing Andrew still had that ray gun that made the target invisible.

Willow, as always, tried to spread oil on the troubled waters, if only to save Xander from himself.  "Umm, guys," she said, turning to the SITs, "these are some friends of Angel's...and, well, we know some of them too.  Like Wesley...he used to be Buffy's Watcher for a little..."

Buffy had no use for the social amenities at the moment; her sole focus was Angel, the Angel she thought she knew.  "You've had a son the whole time I've known you and yet you..."  she stopped, unable to continue until her voice came down to a range more than just dogs could hear.

"No; Connor was only born about a year ago."  Angel raised his hand in the air, knowing his audience well.  "And the first one who says he's big for his age won't have to worry about aging much more themselves."  

"Touchy," Xander murmured.

"He was raised in a hell dimen...you see there's this prophe...it's a long story."  Angel gave it up before he got in too deep.  "Sometime, when we're alone," he made a point of looking straight at Buffy and ignoring the vampire standing directly behind her, "I'll explain it all to you."

"Oh don't bother."  She took a few more steps backward, not even noticing the way Spike's hand was digging into her shoulder in an effort to keep her still.  "It means nothing to me; why should it?"  

Her voice was too high and strained; even she could hear that.  She had to get control of herself before any more damage was done.  Too much depended on her playing her part, no matter what the fates, or Angel, threw at her.

"Buffy, I..."

His eyes, those damn dark, penetrating eyes that could look further down into her soul than she even knew there was to go...she had to get away from those eyes before she said something stupid and totally humiliated herself.

"Is she the one?" Connor broke in.  "The one who sent you to hell?"

Or someone else could do the humiliating for her; that was also a possibility.  Buffy shot Angel a dirty look, her eyebrows rising so high on her forehead they were in danger of disappearing into her hairline.  Angel flushed as best he could, given his limited circulation, and tried to cut his son off at the pass.

"Uh, Connor, not right..."

"Wesley said we were coming to help one of your old girlfriends," Connor continued over his father's strangled injunction, "and you said one of them sent you to hell for a hundred years.  So is this her?"

"You told him about that?" Buffy asked Angel in a biting whisper.

"It's not exactly a well-kept secret, Buffy."  Cordelia shifted uncomfortably on the sofa.  This pregnancy was going on way too long; the results had better be worth all the nuisance.  "Angelus was out of control so you sent him to hell.  Of course when we had the same problem, Wesley decided to send for Faith instead."  She sighed.  "I guess he figured one good apocalypse deserves another."

Given the complications of Angelus' return, and Angel's continuing memory loss for the same time frame, the A.I. team had all agreed before they left LA that the demon's name would not be dropped until after the Sunnydale situation was settled.  Faith could only assume Cordelia's hormones were misfiring again, causing the Seer a memory lapse of her own on a subject only discussed five, or possibly twelve, times in the past day.

"Speaking of the big 'bang, you're dead'," Faith said quickly in an effort to shift attention to things non-Angelus, "where were you guys when the lights went out?  I couldn't believe it when Wes said you didn't even check in when the sun checked out."

Buffy turned away so no one would see the dull red glow washing over her cheeks, or the misery in her eyes.  She had wanted to help, she had wanted to so badly it hurt, but she couldn't risk everything unless she knew she was really absolutely necessary; the stakes were too high.  If Angel had only called, she would have dropped everything...she was sure she would have.  But he hadn't, so she forced herself to watch an apocalypse long-distance, trusting him to take care of it.  Now it turned out Angel hadn't even been Angel, and Faith had been the one called to save both him and the universe.

"Hey, we avert an apocalypse every week," Xander protested, covering for the strange silence that had overtaken Buffy.  "Or at least it seems like it.  But nobody gets 'em all."

"Certainly not you, Xander."

"Love you too, Cor."  He caught the flash of jealousy in Connor's eyes.  "In a purely platonic sort of way."

"Platonic means you like her," Willow reminded him gently.

"Okay, so not platonic.  But nothing for him to run crying to Daddy about either."  

Buffy's back teeth were grinding slowly against each other as she fought for control of both herself and the situation.  "Can we go back to the part where Angelus got loose and you sent for..."  She changed tack abruptly as another thought pounded into her overwrought brain.  "Wait...how did Angelus get loose?"

"That is the question, isn't it, luv?" Spike mused.  "Papa Bear's soul doesn't head for the big bad woods without a little help."  

His remark sounded offhanded, but the eyes he focused on Buffy were narrow with suspicion. He couldn't help but notice the flush in her usually pale cheeks, and he didn't think it had much to do with the anger she should be feeling.

"We set him free," Wesley answered before Angel had a chance to, "with the help of a mystic.  He possessed information that we needed, knowledge to defeat a demon and avert the apocalypse.  We had no choice."

"There's always a choice," Buffy snapped, the charge directed more at herself than Wesley.

Angel smiled painfully at her.  "You know better than anyone that isn't true."

"I can't believe this."  Buffy threw her hands in the air, wishing she could be throwing them all out the door with the same gesture.  "You people are crazy enough to set Angelus free and think you can contain him...you don't even ask for my opinion, let alone my help...and then you think you're the number one answer to my demon problems?  What color is the sky in your world?"

"Black," Cordelia snapped.  "That was the problem.  God, Buffy, you see news reports about the sun being blotted out and you need an invitation to help?"  She shook her head in disbelief.  "You know we were going to skywrite one...but you need sunlight for that!"

"We didn't need her," Connor said with a sneer for the small blonde girl whom his father was watching so intently.  "Dad killed the..." 

He stopped when he realized what he had inadvertently called his father, but Gunn jumped in with his own defense before Angel could recover from his surprise.

"Hey, we got things back under control," Gunn protested.  "Took a little doing, and some heavy hitting from the out-of-town ringers, but we managed."

"And now we want to help you," Fred added.  "Like Willow helped us."

Once more Willow became the focus of Buffy's frustration.  "I can't believe you didn't tell me what they'd done, Will.  How long did you know? "

Willow looked flustered, but her voice remained calm as she answered the unspoken charge.  "Not until just before I left.  Fred called and told me what was wrong, so I got my stuff together and took off."

"Without saying a word," Buffy added sharply.

"There wasn't time.  Angelus needed to be contained, and I didn't want to waste the time explaining why you shouldn't come along."

Buffy crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her heel impatiently.  "Tell me now."

The answer came from an unexpected source.

"I didn't want you there," said Angel quietly.  "I told the others before we began not to call you."

This was not the version Faith had heard, and she opened her mouth to add Wesley's reasoning for the choice of slayers; it gave her a warm glow to be considered the trustworthy one for a change.  But one look at Angel's set face kept Faith silent.  

Buffy, meanwhile, struggled to accept a rejection she should have welcomed.  Putting all her hurt and fear into one bewildered syllable, she asked, "Why?"

Angel met her eyes steadily, though inwardly he flinched at the pain he could see his words had inflicted.  "You already killed me once.  That was more than should ever have been asked of you."

"So very Angel."  Spike flashed what was intended to be a mocking grin, but came out more as a grimace.  "Always thinking of others."

"Could someone be thinking of me for a change?" Cordelia complained.  "I really could use a bathroom, and a bed for the night."  She rubbed her abdomen, taking care to catch Connor's eye and draw it down to follow her movements.  

Angel moved abruptly, backing up towards the door.  "We'll be at the mansion tonight."  He glanced around the living room and hallway, both overflowing with people.  "It looks like you're already filled to capacity here."

"And then some," Xander agreed.  "You have no idea what the line for the bathroom is like in the morning."

"The mansion?" Cordelia asked incredulously.  "As in that oversized pile of Art Deco rubble Angelus called a home?  What about electricity and running water?"

"They're still turned on.  So is the fridge, and there are plenty of blankets and things to make up the bedrooms.  It may be a little dusty, but it's habitable."  

Angel was a little hurt by her lack of faith in his plans, and more than a little embarrassed to admit he had been spending money keeping up a place he no longer lived in.  He'd had his reasons, but they were nothing he wanted to discuss or defend at the moment.

Reason number one blanched as Angel's words sunk in.  The mansion; they were going to the mansion.  They were going to the mansion before she had time to clean things up.

"Umm, tell you what," Buffy said quickly.  "You can all stay here for a little while and Cordelia can get some rest after the long car trip.  And you can, you know, get some food and stretch and all that stuff."  She slipped past Angel in the foyer and reached for the knob on the front door as she continued to babble nervously.  "I'm just going to run out and get some...food.  For breakfast.  You can all come to breakfast tomorrow, right?"

"I'm thinking 'no' for Flambe Boy," Xander suggested.

"Oh yeah, good point," Buffy agreed breathlessly, not even really hearing Xander's comment.  "Well, I'll just be going now."

Angel frowned at the anxious tone in her voice.  He hadn't seen her in a very long time, but he would swear he could still tell when she was hiding something from him.

"Buffy, wait," he said, decision made.  "I'll come with..."

He was speaking to a closed door.

* * * * *

Buffy hurried down the front steps and up the walkway towards the street, moving as quickly as she dared without actually running.  They would hear running, at least the ones with super-powers would, and they would be suspicious.  She couldn't afford that over something so simple.

"Buffy, wait."

She swallowed a groan as she heard Angel's voice coming from the porch.  Why couldn't he have just stayed in LA?  He was safe there, relatively speaking, and she was safer here with him there.  But no, he had to come charging in on his white...ish black convertible...and save the day, whether she wanted him to or not. 

"Angel," she sighed, turning around at the end of the walkway, "go inside; stay with your friends.  I'll be right back."

"Back from where?" he asked as he hurried down the steps.  "Not the store; I could tell that was a lie."

She placed a hand on each hip and glared at him, regretting the moonlight because it hid her expression from him.  And his from her.

"Aren't you sweet, driving two hours just to call me a liar.  But considering the price of gasoline, shouldn't you have just said it with flowers?"

He was standing beside her, alone in the moonlight, and all he wanted was to reach out and catch the stray lock of blonde hair that was drifting across her forehead.  Instead he clenched his hands into fists and hid them behind his coat, hoping he could keep them there.

"You can't lie to me any better than I could ever lie to you.  I won't say we haven't tried," he shrugged, "but no dice."

Buffy blew an impatient sigh between her teeth.  It was no use to lie to him; he was right about that.  But if she gave up her dignity and confessed to this one small weakness, there was a chance she could keep the rest of her secrets to herself and still get them all out alive.

"Fine.  You want to know the awful truth, I'll tell you.  I'm going to the mansion to get some stuff."

"Stuff?"

"My stuff," she explained.  "I've...been, umm, keeping some things there."  She kept her face carefully turned away from his; even in this light she was sure her cheeks must be as bright as Rudolph's nose.  "It gets a little crowded here sometimes...most of the time...and I figured you wouldn't mind if I used your place as sort of a retreat.  I mean you said..."

"No, I," he cleared his throat, "I don't mind.  That's why I, well, that's why I left things like the electricity on."

"I just didn't want anyone...any of the others...to see," she added.  Emboldened by Angel's lost composure, she allowed herself to face him again.  "It's kind of my secret getaway, and I thought if they knew they'd tell the others, like Xander or Willow or...it just wouldn't be the same if they knew."

"Buffy, it's okay; I understand.  But you don't need to get your things out of there.  You can put them in my old room.  There's a chest...you remember that old wooden I kept the extra blankets...you, uh, know the one I mean."

She nodded, working as hard as he to keep the memories at bay.  The nights they curled up together under those blankets for a post-patrol catnap.  The chill winter afternoons they sprawled out on them in front of the fire, Angel pretending to read as she pretended to study.  If she could truly forget any of those moments, she wouldn't need to go to the mansion in the first place.

"Anyway, whatever doesn't fit in the chest you can just pile up in the corners; I'll make sure to keep everyone out.  I can even stay in another room myself if you want."

"No," she said quickly.  "That's okay.  I mean it's perfect.  You stay in the room and I'll move my stuff in there right now.  It won't take long; a lot of it is already...umm, it won't take long," she promised.

"Take however long you need.  I'll keep them busy until you get back."

He turned to walk back to the house, fighting the urge to go with her.  She didn't want his company for this errand; that much was clear.  If he forced the issue he would only drive her deeper into herself; he had to take things slowly even though every nerve in his body screamed in protest.

"Angel, wait."

He turned around quickly, hoping she would ask for his company.  They had so much to talk about, and all too soon the fight with the First Evil would have to take precedence over everything.  Tonight might be all they had.

"Please go back to LA."  Even by the fickle light of the moon Buffy could see the shock on Angel's pale face, and the hurt, but it only made her spit the rest out faster.  "Don't stay here.  Tonight, that's fine, but tomorrow night you should go home."

Home.  She had once thought of Sunnydale as his home and begged him not to leave; now she couldn't seem to wait to get rid of him.  Angel reminded himself it had been his choice to leave; he tried to put aside the pain her rejection inflicted because he had, in a sense, earned it.  But despite his silent self-chastising, a little tang of bitterness still crept into his reply.  

"What's wrong?  Afraid the town isn't big enough for both me and your newest boy toy?"

She was caught; trapped between a lie that would hurt him and a truth that could get him...all of them...killed.  Again, she had to settle for a partial truth to divert attention.

"I'm afraid of the First," she confessed.  "What it will do to you.  The last time it was here, you were the target.  It wanted Angelus free or you dead, and I can't let either of those things happen."

"It won't free Angelus; it can't.  And I'm not about to let it kill me either."

She didn't even hear him promise Angelus' absence; her attention was caught in the past, on a hilltop one Christmas morning just before dawn.  She'd almost lost him that day; she would have lost him if his vaunted PTB's hadn't intervened.  But she couldn't count on them helping anymore; she couldn't count on anyone anymore.  Everything...Angel, her friends, the SITs, the whole world...was in her hands, and hers alone.

"You might not have a choice, except for this one.  Leave, while there's still time."  Her voice dropped to a whisper.  "Be safe."

"With you here...all of you...still fighting?  You really expect me to put saving my own skin first?"

"I want you to."

He shook his head.  "I can't.  Not even for you."

"Dammit, Angel!"

"No."

It was no use; she'd known that from the start.  It was part of the reason she never sent for him, even the times it felt like the First would indeed win.  If she never told him about the fight, she wouldn't have to deal with whether or not she should accept his help.  And then at least he would be safe; at least one person she loved would be safe.  Except now he wouldn't be, because there was no way to undo what Willow had set in motion when she told him about the First.

From here on out, it was strictly damage control.

"Fine," she snapped.  "Stay.  Die.  Just don't come crying to me about it afterwards."

He smiled at her; the old, sad, half-smile that never failed to tear off a piece of her heart.  "I'll try to remember that."

She spun on her heel and stalked off, not bothering to see if he went inside.  Of course he would go inside, to his friends and his family.  To her friends and family.  Let them all enjoy each other's company for as long as they could; that was why she was here after all.  To make sure everyone else got a life.

* * * * *

Angel moved slowly up the paved walkway, lost in his thoughts.  He had known this would be a difficult trip, given all the different personalities forced to coexist and cooperate.  And the distance he and Buffy had allowed to grow between them, a distance that precluded his knowledge of her relationship with Spike and her knowledge of Connor's existence, was only making things more difficult.

It wasn't that Buffy had been unwelcoming that surprised him; he hadn't exactly been the soul of understanding himself when she'd butted into his life and lectured him about Faith a few years ago.  And he didn't blame her for being angry about Connor; the day she had a child with another man was the day he'd find a shrink who took vampire patients.  It wasn't even the way she'd snapped at her friends that disturbed him, because he'd done the same thing himself in the past, out of pain and fear.  That was actually what bothered him – the pain and fear he sensed beneath her rather chill exterior.  

He had been prepared for Buffy to be cold and distant; at least that's what he'd told himself.  She had been very much so the last time he'd seen her, in that little cottage by the shore, and her life since then had left little time for healing. But no matter how many times he'd told himself to expect the worst, he'd never believed it was true.  She was always the strong one; he couldn't imagine a Buffy who let herself remain trapped in bitterness and regret.  Her place was in the sunlight, and he'd never really doubted that she would find her way there eventually.

Instead it seemed the place she'd found was one far removed from those she loved, and she kept them away with the same cold determination she'd used against him the last time he saw her.  And when the mask slipped, somehow it only made things worse.  The loneliness, and abject fear of loneliness, that he saw in her eyes broke his heart all over again.

"She's over you, you know."

Angel's head snapped up, his keen eyes discerning Spike's lounging shape in the shadowy recesses of the porch.

"Oh she may get a bit flustered around you," the blond vampire drawled as he came out into full view, "but that's just because she doesn't want to get into the old can of worms with an apocalypse just around the corner.  I'm the one for her, the only one she needs, and she knows it."

"Does she?  Didn't sound like it to me."  Angel stopped in his tracks, before he got close enough to break Spike's neck.  "I'm the one she's trying to get out of harm's way, not you.  I'm thinking you're just cannon fodder."

Spike shoved down the mocking voice in his head that had been expressing the same thought since the moment he'd heard her beg Angel to go back to LA.  "She needs me," he said stoutly.  "I'm the one she can depend on; I'm the one she trusts with her life.  You're just dead weight, mate."

"Spike, Spike.  Still with the delusions of competence."  Angel shook his head, feigning a pity he couldn't begin to feel.  "Dru might have needed a keeper, but not even she was crazy enough to trust you."

"Just ask her so-called friends," Spike boasted.  Here at least he felt secure in his argument.  "Every time they've tried to make her choose between them and me, she's picked me.  Sooner or later you'll try to, and then you'll see.  She picks me every time, because I'm the only one she needs."

Angel forced his jaw to unclench, forced his hands to stay flat and not curl into fists, forced his voice to be calm.  It wasn't nearly as satisfying as forcing a section of the porch railing through Spike's scrawny chest, but he had no choice.  His hands were tied until he got a better idea from Buffy just what the hell was going on between her and his unruly childe.

"You know how it is in a time of crisis, Spike.  Every now and then you need to let your hair down and have a good laugh."  He smiled grimly.  "I know I've always thought of you as a big joke."

"Then do me a favor mate and die laughing."

"You first."

One of them had to move, Spike realized; they couldn't still be standing there squabbling like schoolboys when Buffy returned.  But even in the dim moonlight, he could see that his sire had no intention of walking away, physically or metaphorically.  Which in one way was perfect, since Spike wanted to be the one to go after Buffy.  One snag with that plan, however:  he didn't dare leave his sire alone with all the Scoobies.  

It's not like they were all about the Angel-worship, he reflected, especially Xander.  But even after all the things Spike had done for them, after all the times he'd saved their worthless necks without so much as a nibble, he knew they still trusted him even less than the guy who tried to send them all to hell.  More than likely the only reason Red had brought his sire here was to 'rescue' Buffy from him, like Spike would let that happen without a fight.  

So instead of chasing down his slayer, Spike opened the front door and slipped inside the house, leaving his sire brooding on the doorstep.  _Trying to make himself look all deep and thoughtful, Spike silently jeered. _Angel or Angelus, he was_ a_lways the drama queen.__

* * * * *

Buffy gathered her things quickly, piling them into the large wooden chest with more of an eye towards speed than order.  Most of them she didn't have far to move; she had left the majority of her creature comforts in the Great Hall and Angel's bedroom where she spent the most time.  Not that she still thought of it as Angel's room, of course; she had been careful from the beginning to discipline herself to say "the bedroom," as though it was now the only one instead of one of six.  But somehow tonight, having seen Angel again and now standing in the rooms where he had spent so much of his last year in Sunnydale, she couldn't separate him from these surroundings anymore.

Memories, it seemed, were nine-tenths of possession.

Mr. Gordo was settled into the sleeve of Angel's old leather jacket, and laid to rest over a box of carefully hoarded photographs and several small leather-bound journals.  Next to the box was a short stack of CDs, though she had left her old boombox on the dresser in case Angel wanted to play anything of his own.  She almost wished she could leave the CDs out too, to help him block out the noise of so many squabbling humans under the same roof.  But he'd always possessed an uncanny knack for gauging her mood by her musical tastes; he saw patterns even she didn't always pick up on until he mentioned them.  The collection she maintained at the mansion would be revealing in the extreme, and she couldn't afford to let him in even an inch.

The odds and ends of clothing she kept at the mansion she would pile on top, to cover everything.  If anyone did open the chest, they would think her clothes had been left there from years before; relicts of a time when her life and Angel's had crossed.  The few shirts he had left when he moved, she forced herself to leave in the closet.  She didn't want to look like she was hoarding his things...and she didn't want to destroy the faint scent that still clung to them.  She would just have to take her chances that he left them when he went back to LA.

Now she just needed to grab the books she had left next to the couch in front of the fireplace and slip them in the corners of the chest, and then she would be done.  No need to reveal that she still pored over her old college textbooks and imagined what her future might have been.  And there was certainly no reason to let anyone see the worn but well-loved book of sonnets Angel had given her for her eighteenth birthday, least of all Angel.  

A sound in the Great Hall caught her ears and she hurried out to investigate, after reaching deep into the chest to retrieve Mr. Pointy.  She dropped the hand that held Kendra's favorite stake to her side, however, when she realized who was standing by the empty fireplace.

"Angel," she said flatly.

* * * * *

To Be Continued 


	2. Chapter 2

**Dead End**

**Part 2**

**By Gem**

He was standing in front of the fireplace the way he had so many times in the past; the way he did in so many of her dreams.  Weight balanced on the balls of his feet to keep him perpetually ready to repel attacks, shoulders slightly hunched as though in apology, pale skin reflecting the colors of the fire and his burgundy silk shirt.  Even his hands were in the proscribed Angel-ish position: fingers pushing against each other in that weird sort of upside down triangle he made whenever there was something he was taking a lot of work to phrase the right way.  It was all so very Brooding Guy.

"What are you doing here?" Buffy sighed as she approached him.

Angel eyed her silently for a moment longer before he answered.  "You left before we were finished."

"Oh, so you're the only one who gets to do that?"

She regretted her words an instant later, in the moment she saw his head turn away to keep her from seeing the impact in his dark eyes.  But it was too late to take anything back, and probably not a good idea even if she could.  The whole plan was to keep him at a distance emotionally until she could get him to do as much physically.

"You're still angry about that."  

"Well yeah."  She stopped walking towards him; all her energy was focused on the swing between astonishment and confusion.  Angel sounded almost surprised by her response.  "Color me shallow, but I think walking out still qualifies as a relationship faux pas."

"But I thought we moved past that."  This time it was Angel moving towards her, just one small step.  "It was a long time ago, Buffy."

"I didn't say it was keeping me up nights."

Two steps closer this time, his long legs rapidly swallowing the safe distance between them.

"What is keeping you up nights?  Something must be; you look so tired."

"Gee, thanks."

She tried not to notice the way his voice had deepened, or the warming glow in his brown eyes.  Better to keep her own eyes on the slow, graceful movement of his tall form approaching hers.  Not better, she quickly corrected herself, just safer.  When it came to Angel, Buffy had to be Safety Girl first, last and always.

Always.

"You look beautiful," his voice was a soft caress, "but tired."  Another dangerous step closer.  "And sad.  Tell me why you look so sad, Buffy."

Involuntarily she stepped backwards, and then forced herself to stop.  She would not let him scare her, especially not with her own emotions.  Instead she opted for the familiar security of flippancy.

"Oh, you know, the usual.  Friends in danger, my replacements dying right and left, an apocalypse on the horizon...same old, same old."  She turned up her palms at the little quirks of Fate.  "Plus, Dawn spilled tea on my favorite white sweater, which she'd borrowed without asking."  

"Have I told you lately how much I've always loved the way you can laugh at your problems?"  Angel's face fell and his steps slowed to a halt.  "No, I haven't told you much of anything lately, have I?"

His quiet, self-reproachful tone was its own font of memories for Buffy, but she still struggled to conceal the effect he was having on her.  "The laughing thing...it's a gift."  She shrugged.  "Or, depending on who you ask, and when, it's also been called a cur...well, no, not exactly a cur...umm," she fumbled into awkward silence.

Angel was still focused on his own thoughts.  "I wish you could teach me how to laugh like that."

She was starting to get a weird vibe from him; something didn't feel quite right.  But Angel didn't let her have any time to examine the feeling.  He was on the move again, relentlessly advancing as she kept pace backpedaling.  

"Okay, umm Angel, does the term 'personal distance' mean anything to you?"  Obviously it didn't, at least not at the moment, because he was still walking towards her.  "How about 'curse'?  That one really should ring a big old bell, or at least some gypsy violins."

He didn't seem to hear her.  His eyes focused intently on hers, almost as though he was trying to hypnotize her.

"My beautiful Buffy."

Or seduce her.  She scrambled back a few more steps to avoid the possibilities behind of Door Number 2.  

What she had been able to push to the side in her own living room, and even on her moonlit front lawn, could not be ignored in this house, this room.  Too much had happened between them here, too many raw emotions still colored the air despite the intervening years.  Her resistance to Angel had never been good to begin with, nor his to her, and the thick rope of memories that bound them to this place threatened to rob her of what little strength she possessed.

"There are so many things I never had a chance to teach you," Angel murmured, deliberately using that husky tone of voice he knew left her weak in both knees and head.

"Angel, I really think you should..."

Her back hit the stone wall.  The hallway leading to the bedroom was to her right, if she could just slip past him without touching him.  Suddenly that last part seemed very important to her weakening resolve.

"Things I want to teach you."

He still wasn't listening, she realized in a moment of panic.  She knew which way his thoughts were turning, and somehow she had to turn them back but he just refused to listen to her.  The only saving grace was that he had stopped moving towards her.    

He had stopped.  

"Things no one else ever could teach you, baby," Angel all but purred at her.

He was about a foot away from her, his body at just enough of an angle to block her escape down the hallway, and yet he made no move to actually touch her.   Slowly Buffy tipped her chin up to look long and hard into those smoldering dark eyes, putting aside all the memories and all the shattered hopes so that she could really see the man standing before her.

She wasn't sure whether to be relieved or crushed at what she found there.

"You can drop the act," she said quietly, after her suspicions had been confirmed. "I know you're not him."

"Him?"

"Angel," she said flatly.  "I know the real one, in a way you never could, and you're nothing but a designer imposter.  Kind of a stinky one at that."  

It wasn't that she'd believed him that bothered her; it was that she had been so willing to believe.  So damned willing to believe her eyes and not every other sense that declared him counterfeit.

He didn't seem to realize he'd been found out, though; he was all about injured innocence.  "So you think I'm Angelus?  Buffy, I swear I'm not him."

"I know you're not Angelus," she assured him.  The look of confusion on his face almost...almost...made her pain worthwhile.  "Angelus wouldn't have let me get far enough away to hit this wall."  She patted the cold stone bracing her achingly straight spine.  This was no time to slump in defeat.  "With everyone else he was like a cat toying with a mouse, but with me...he just couldn't wait to pounce."

"You brought out the true beast in him."

"And Angel," she continued, as though Faux Angel had never spoken, "wouldn't have moved another step once he saw me back up."

"Angel would never dream of forcing himself on you."  Faux Angel's voice had suddenly changed, sounding more like Angelus' mocking tone.  But she wasn't fooled.

"No," she agreed with a tight smile, "he wouldn't.  But you're just always popping up where you're not wanted.  Using peoples' feelings..."

"Desires," he corrected her.

"Against them."

He shrugged his...Angel's...broad shoulders.  "Is it my fault people are so transparent, and so very gullible?  They see what they're desperate to see; I simply...facilitate."

"To make them do what you want."

"What they want.  And what they want is usually just the thing they're not supposed to have.  It's human nature, you-know-who bless it."

"But what you were trying to start here, you couldn't hope to finish," she pointed out.  "How dumb is that?"

"Did you ever hear of a man named Tantalus?"

"Hairy guy, eight legs? Wasn't he Spiderman's cousin?"

"Tantalus could never reach the finish line; his desires were forever out of reach.  But unlike that poor bastard, your long cold drink of water is right under your nose and ready for the tasting." His lips twisted in what she now recognized as a shallow parody of Angel's crooked smile.  "Why not drink deep? You know you want to."

She reached out to grab him then, angered by how easily he plundered memories both real and fantasized.  But as expected, he disappeared the instant before her fingers closed on the soft leather of his coat sleeve.  She was alone, except for the thousand images his words had shaken loose from the padlocked vaults of her mind.

"Some days I really hate my life," she growled.

* * * * *

"We've to get him out of here, Wes, and soon.  I can stay and fight, but he can't.  Not like this."

Wesley scratched his head as he watched Faith pacing anxiously around the island in the kitchen.  

"Faith, be reasonable."

"Umm, Wesley," Xander began hesitantly, "do you remember who you're talking to?"

The Watcher ignored Xander to focus on Faith.  "Angel is not a child.  We can't simply pack up his toys and strap him in the car seat."

She stopped pacing and stabbed a finger at her chest.  "_I_ can strap him in that car seat if I have to."

"And then what?  Even if we convinced him to go back to LA...and I seriously doubt that we could...he'd never stay.  His place is here and he knows it."

"Here?  You mean with Buffy?"

"No, I mean fighting the First Evil," Wesley explained patiently.  "He's a warrior, Faith; this is the kind of fight he was born for."

"Or died for, depending on how you look at it," Willow added.  

Under the table one heel was repeatedly tapping the other one, but that was the only outlet for her boredom she allowed herself.  On the face of it Willow was the soul of patience and courtesy...for Wesley's sake.

"The only fight I'm seeing on the horizon is with a little blond...over a little blonde.  I just don't see that ending well."

"This isn't about Spike, or about Buffy," Willow protested.  "It's about the end of the world."

Faith snorted at the witch's earnest tone.  "Yeah, and where were you the last time that subject came up?"

"You know, I'm getting pretty sick of you playing fightier than thou," Willow snapped.  "The last time you had to face an apocalypse, you were helping to start it.  Oh wait, no, you didn't even do that much.  You slept through it."

"And whose fault was that?" Faith challenged her.  She leaned over the table and dropped her voice to a near whisper.  "Could it be Buffy's?"

"After you tried to kill Angel," Willow protested indignantly.

"And now I'm trying to make up for it...because of Angel.  Listen, I'll stay and fight; I'm not scared and I won't leave you guys in the lurch.  But he can't stay here; it won't work."  

Faith straightened up, her hands instinctively clenching into fists.  She couldn't figure out how to make them see reason, but she couldn't stop trying.

"Angel, Buffy, Spike, all fighting on the same side?  It's a recipe for disaster, and disaster in this case means the world goes to hell and takes us along for the ride."  She looked directly at Willow.  "Do you really want to die because Buffy slept with the one guy Angel can't stand the idea of her sleeping with?"

Xander raised his hand for recognition by the floor.  "Call it a hunch, but I doubt his list only has one name on it." 

"Faith, you've scarcely met the...man," Wesley protested.  "How can you be so sure working with Spike will set Angel off?"

"No, no; Faith's got some of it right, Wes."  Xander sighed, wishing he could magically trade the two slayers' attitudes.  "To know Spike is to loathe him, and it usually doesn't take long."  He looked away.  "For everyone but Buffy, that is."

"Xander."

"Will, you know it as well as I do.  She's not..."

"Here to defend herself," Willow overrode him firmly.  "And I really don't think we should be discussing her, umm, love life, when she's not around to defend...explain."  

"Love life?" he repeated incredulously.

She raised an eyebrow and nodded her head ever so slightly in the direction of Faith and Wesley, trying to caution Xander silently about airing the family dirty linen in public.  She already felt guilty enough for what she'd had to reveal thus far.

"Look, I don't give a damn who...hell, what!...B sleeps with," Faith interrupted impatiently.  "But Angel's had a rough few weeks and he still gets the shakes.  I think sitting on the couch while Buffy and Spike are at the other end giving each other a tonsillectomy from the inside out might be a little too much to expect even of his soul."

"Thanks so much for the image," Xander grumbled.  "Now I won't be able to look at that sofa, let alone sit on it.  Do you know how hard it is to find a seat in a house with 20 other people living in it?"

"We don't have a choice, lamb chop," Lorne said gently.  The demon had been quiet until now, letting those whom Faith knew better take charge of talking her down, but it seemed his patience had been for nothing.  "As nice as it is that you want to slay that dragon for him, Saint George needs to be here, and on more levels than even he knows about."  

"Besides, he wants to be here," Willow added.  "It was his idea, remember?"

Actually Faith was a little hazy on whose idea it had been; there had been so many competing voices and opinions ringing through the Hyperion's lobby it was a wonder they managed to come up with travel plans before New Year's.  In the aftermath, the only judgment she could remember was her own.

"And I said it was a bad one; do you remember that?  And that was before I even knew B was sleeping with the enemy."  The slayer ran her hand through her hair, tugging at the ends in her frustration.  "I just know mentioning Spike messes him up almost as much as seeing Buffy does, and he's already pretty well messed."

"Then he can go a little heavier on the bed head look and no one will be the wiser.  Given his usual hairstyle, it might even help."  Lorne reached out and patted Faith's arm.  "Cheer up, little sister; Angel's actually been through tougher times than this and lived to tell the tale."  He paused for a moment, weighing the accuracy of his words.  "Okay," he amended, "so he didn't actually live...and he's not much for the tale telling either.  But that boy has definitely seen some tough times."

"Yeah," Faith shot back, "like hell, courtesy of She-Who-Likes-to-Pretend-It-Never-Happened.  Of course hell will seem like a picnic in the park compared to the next few days around here."

"Actually a picnic in the park probably is on Angel's list of things to do in hell," Xander pointed out.  "How often do you picnic after dark?  And can you picture him sitting on a red and white plaid blanket?  Paint It Black Boy?"

"The point is, we don't have time for personal issues anymore."  Wesley slapped his hand on the tabletop.  "If we've learned anything, it is that we have to stop letting our own fears and hurts dictate our actions.  We simply need to complete the task assigned to us, and in this case it would be battling the First Evil."

"Cordy didn't have a vision," Faith protested.  "Maybe you're all supposed to be back in LA, waiting for some sign of impending evil there."

"And if that sign comes, it will find Cordelia here as well as it could in Los Angeles," Wesley said firmly.  "Now can we please stop discussing this before Angel comes downstairs?"  

He glanced up at the ceiling, as though he could see through the plaster and beams to the bedrooms above, where Angel, Fred and Gunn had been brought to meet the other SITs who had slept through their arrival.  Faith and Wesley had been included in the invitation as well, of course, but they were both having trouble facing their failed pasts in the shape of others' futures.

"Will you at least think about what I'm saying?" Faith begged.  

Xander scratched his head.  "You know what I don't get..." he began.

"I could say 'girls'," Faith suggested with a sigh, "but that would be too easy."

Xander decided to overlook her response, mostly because he couldn't think of a quick comeback.  Instead, he got up from his chair and began pacing, trying out his best Perry Mason-style address to the jury.

"I know why I don't want Angel here:  he bugs me.  He's always bugged me.  And I'm not too hyped on Lorne's idea that St. Gorgeous George is here to rescue the Buffy in distress."  He wheeled around and waved his finger in Faith's face for emphasis.  "All Sunnydale slayage, dragons or otherwise, is her deal, missy, not Angel's."

"So you think Angel is gorgeous, huh?"  Faith cocked her head and smiled up at him.  "I never knew you swung that way, Harris.  Too bad."  She sighed in mock regret.  

"Faith, please."  Wesley knew exactly where this was headed, and it was nowhere near where they needed to be.

The Slayer ignored him, moving closer to Xander so that she could lightly run her index finger down his chest, from his Adam's apple to just above his belt buckle.  The nervous look in his eye made her remember what she'd enjoyed most about her bad old days:  the chance to escape, for just a few minutes, from the pain and the fear that defined her life.  And in this house, surrounded by memories and enemies, she really needed that escape.

"If I'd known sooner," she murmured, "we could've done something about it.  I'm always game to try new things."

"I realize it's been a long time since you've seen a man _not_ in uniform, Faith," Willow snapped, "but can you put your hormones in neutral for just a few minutes more? Say...until you leave?"

"What's the matter, Willow?"  Faith abruptly abandoned her attentions to Xander and leaned across the table to purr, "Are you jealous I didn't give you a tumble too?"

"Enough of this."  Wesley rapped on the table with his knuckle to get everyone's attention.  "Let Xander speak.  What he's trying to say might be important."   A moment later he shook his head and murmured, "I can't believe I just said that."

Xander recollected the thoughts Faith had so ably scattered and peered suspiciously at her.   "I just want to know why you're so wigged about this.  I don't remember you being the panicky type, except when you thought you were about to get caught."

Faith gnawed on her lower lip, trying to decide if she could deal with their reaction to the truth.  From the sound of it, Xander in particular would hold her accountable, and if Angel ever found out...

But worse yet if he found out she'd realized the truth and not told him.

"It's my fault," she confessed in a low voice.  "The whole stupid Spike hanging all over Buffy thing – it's my fault.  I can't help that she was dumb enough to fall for it," she added quickly, "but I turned him on and I guess she couldn't figure out how to hit the 'off' switch.  Or she really didn't want to."

"What are you talking about?"  

She shrugged at Wesley's question.  "I guess you could say I vamped him.  Back when I, umm, borrowed Buffy's body..."

"Stole!" Willow cut in.

"Okay, stole.  Whatever."  Faith waved her hands impatiently, pushing aside all extraneous questions of morality.  "I was in Buffy's body and I saw him, Spike, and I...came on to him.  Gave him a jolt too," she said with a reminiscent grin.  

"In public?"  Xander swiped his hand over his forehead as he tried to gain control of his imagination.  "Where was I?"

"Get your mind off of the pay-per-view channels, Harris," the Slayer snorted.  "I mean he hadn't thought of her that way before, or thought she could think of him like that.  I could tell.  So I planted the idea, as kind of a joke."

"A joke?" Xander repeated in a strangled voice.  "As in squirt guns and banana peels?  That kind of joke?" 

If so, it was one not even he, the would-be Sunnydale High Class Clown of 1999, could find the funny in.

"Hey, we're talking funny on the dark side of the Force," Faith said defensively, "not the Far Side.  You all had her up on some 90-foot ivory pedestal, and I thought maybe it was time to bring her back down to earth.  Spike seemed like the perfect demolition tool."

Xander nodded, wishing she were wrong.  "That he is." 

"I guess I...wanted to rub her nose in it too," Faith admitted.  "That she got over Angel so quickly.  I wanted to make everyone see she couldn't have really loved him that much if she would pant after anything in pants, including Spike."

Willow thought about it all for a moment, trying to fit Faith's confession in with all that she'd seen in Buffy over the past few years.  Sadly, she could only reach one conclusion.

"Faith," she said slowly, "as much as it kills me to say this...I don't think it was your fault.  Not really.  Not that you had any right to do what you did," she hastily added.  "And not that it helped.  But turning Spike on was only part of the problem; the other half was the way Buffy reacted to it."  Willow forced herself to continue, though it went against the grain to confide in Faith, of all people.  "She was so, well, messed up when we brought her back from Heaven...anybody would have been.  She just wasn't thinking straight."

Faith had worked too hard learning to take responsibility for her actions; she couldn't give up now.  "And what about now?  She's been back for, what a year and a half?  If it wasn't what I did, then why is he still here?"

"That," Xander sighed, "is the 64 gazillion dollar question."

* * * * *

Buffy hurried along the dark streets, trying to reassure herself that everything could still be all right.  She had to get Angel out of town; that was all.  Once he was gone the First wouldn't be able to distract her with visions of what might have been.  And until Angel left, she just had to, well, keep in close contact.

Strictly for business reasons, she reassured herself.

The First could not assume corporeal form.  Therefore the Angel who had walked into her living room tonight, the one who put his big hands lightly on her arms, the one whose broad chest she had felt under her own hands, was the real deal.  But the only way to be sure the one in her house continued to be the genuine article, she would have to periodically verify his credentials in the flesh and bone department.

And all without arousing Spike's jealousy or setting off anyone else's paranoia.  

"Sure," she sighed.  "No problem.  Piece of cake."

* * * * *

As Buffy climbed the porch steps, she told herself she had it all together.  She was calm, she was prepared...her face would appear next to the word 'discretion' in future reprints of the dictionary, that's how much in control she was.

At least until she walked into her house, that is.

The house was quiet.  Too quiet.  She could hear faint voices in the kitchen, a few creaking floorboards and some murmurs from upstairs, and that was it.  No trace of retro punk emanated from the basement, no running water sounds echoed from the upstairs shower (which seemed to be in constant use these days), no microwave beeped in the kitchen as a warning of the eau de burnt popcorn waiting to waft through the house.  This was not the home of twenty...gulp, make that thirty...people trying to pretend they would be hanging out with each other if the world weren't scheduled for imminent endage.

"Angel!" she called out anxiously.  "Angel, where are you?"

She didn't dare add 'who are you?' though under the circumstances it was actually the most important question.  Had the First reappeared in her home in his Angel guise?  He...it...could have done anything to them and they would never suspect Angel until it was too late.  Or had he appeared briefly as Angelus, just long enough to lead them to attack the real, and really innocent, Angel?  Dammit, why hadn't she seen this coming?  

"Angel!  Are you still here?"

Of all that she had feared from Angel's presence in Sunnydale, the possibility of the First imitating him had never occurred to her.  She'd simply forgotten Angel was dead; she never thought of him that way.  If she'd ever really been able to, many things might have been different over the years.

The pounding of footsteps, coming from all directions, put an end to her self-recrimination.  Within the space of two minutes Angel came running down the stairs, followed by Gunn, Fred, Spike, Andrew and every SIT in the house.  Willow, Xander, Wesley and Faith darted in from the kitchen, and Connor ran in from the living room, from whence a fretful Cordelia's voice could be heard.

For the moment, though, Buffy only had eyes for Angel.

He looked real, although reality was pretty much up for grabs in her daily life.  But his feet made an audible sound against the wooden risers as he ran down them, and when he skidded to a halt in front of her, the cheek she fleetingly caressed had both texture and solidity.

"Why not drink deep?" Faux Angel's voice whispered in her ear.  "You know you want to."

"Buffy, what's wrong?" the real Angel asked, searching deep into her anxious hazel eyes.  He reached up, intent on holding the hand that was already fleeing contact with his face, but she pulled away too fast.

"I saw you at the..." she stopped herself just in time, and paused to redirect her words to address the more important disclosure.  "At least I saw what I thought was you, but it wasn't.  It was the First all dressed up in an Angel suit."

"Him too?" Xander asked, throwing a withering glance at Spike in his long red silk shirt.  "What, is Angel the new black or something?  I mean it would fit, what with him wearing so much black and all, but still...doesn't anyone dare to be different these days?"

"You mean since it's worked so well for you?" Spike asked.

"It is me, Buffy," Angel reassured her.  "That wasn't, but this is."

She nodded vigorously.  "I know.  I mean I knew it was you when you came in here tonight, because I bumped into you.  And now, since I touched you," her arm reflexively extended towards him until she caught Spike's jealous glare out of the corner of her eye.  She slammed her hand back down by her side, fingers curling into a fist she hid in the fold of her slacks.  "Now I know it's still you," she finished somewhat lamely.

Angel frowned.  "As far as evidence goes...I don't think that's it."

"Very impressive," Spike drawled.  "Somebody's been watching his Columbo."

Angel shot Spike a dirty look, but kept his questions focused on Buffy and the matter at hand.  "What does touch have to do with it?"

Now it was Buffy's turn to frown.  "The First doesn't have a real body, not even a borrowed one.  It's incorporeal; you know that."

"Since when?" Angel probed.  "Who told you that?"

"Since ever," Willow answered.  "And Giles told us.  Why?"

Angel scratched his head as he tried to remember events from a night he would rather forget.  "Maybe things have changed...maybe it's grown weaker or something...but when the First came after me, it had a body.  She touched me...touched my forehead, my cheek.  I knew she wasn't real because she couldn't be, but I felt her touch."

"She?" Willow asked hesitantly.  Buffy had told her very few of the details of Angel's encounter with the First; most of it the Slayer had claimed wouldn't be useful information, only privately painful.  Now Willow found herself fearing the worst.

"Jenny Calendar."  Angel looked at the witch who'd been Jenny's protégé with regret in his eyes, but no expectation of comfort.  "The First put on quite the variety show, but she was the star attraction."

"Ouch."  Xander felt his gut twist with something akin to pity.

"But that doesn't make any sense," Buffy protested, drawing Angel's attention back to the present.  "Giles told us it couldn't take solid human form.  Giles is...Giles.  He knows his facts."

"His facts, Buffy's facts, your facts..." Willow continued, "everybody's facts."

"He's Giles," Xander reiterated, just in case Angel hadn't followed the conversation.

Wesley sighed.  "And they wonder why I never felt secure here."

"Actually, Wes, no one really did wonder." Faith patted him on the back, one outsider to another.  "The bow ties pretty much said it all."

"I thought the bow ties were sweet," Cordelia protested, joining the crowd in the foyer.  "In a hopelessly 'I'm-out-of-date-because-I'm-too-shy-to-get-a-date' kind of way."

Connor looked at her and frowned.  "What's a bow tie?" 

"Like I said," Angel said loudly, over the growing tangle of sub-conversations, "maybe things have changed.  But the First I knew was corporeal."

"Oh that's just perfect," Buffy sighed.  "We have like one concrete thing we know about the First Evil, other than, gee, it's evil, and now we don't even know that much for sure.  Have I mentioned lately how very much this job sucks?"

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault evil doesn't play by the rules."  Buffy rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms, suddenly feeling a chill that wouldn't go away.  "So if it was corporeal, it could be again, potentially.  Swell."

"Yeah, swell," Spike echoed sourly, noticing the close proximity the Slayer and her former lover maintained.  "Only one demon to fight over and all of us looking for something to punch."  He looked directly at Angel.  "What _will we do?"_

Cordelia had had enough of all this family togetherness.  "Okay, I get that the monster we're fighting has hands instead of just minions; can we go now?"  She tilted her head to the side and smiled winsomely at Angel.  "It's not like we don't fight fingered things every day; I don't see it being worth hanging around here all night for."

"I don't know," Gunn said.  "Some of those stories I was hearing upstairs...I wouldn't mind getting a little more info on this particular thing's fingers."

"He usually has five on each hand," Andrew contributed.  "Except when he doesn't.  Or when he's not a he."  

"We..." Angel began, but Andrew wasn't finished yet.

"That is, he's not always a he, but the number of fingers doesn't seem to have anything to do with it."

Angel sighed and tried again.  "Cor..." 

"Unless it does and we just don't know it."  

The vampire stared at Andrew for a moment, waiting to see if the babble was truly at an end this time before he said, "Cordy's right; we should get some rest. Or at least she should."

"And the girls need sleep even if you don't," Buffy told Gunn firmly.

"Check out Ma and Pa," Spike sneered, "tucking the little kiddies all safe in their beds in the little house on the hellmouth."

Buffy shot him an anxious look; she knew that tone and she knew what was brewing beneath his deliberately cool façade.

"I need to patrol," she said abruptly.  "And I think Faith does too," she added before she received the masculine offers for help that she knew were hovering on certain tongues.  "But just us."

"Aww, B, I'm touched."

"Damn."  Gunn snapped his fingers.  "I was looking forward to the show, seeing two of you ladies in action at the same time."  He cast a look of approval at the dark-haired slayer.  "Faith was really something to watch all by her lonesome."

Fred stared down at her nervously twisting hands, trying to conceal the hurt in her eyes.  Once upon a time it was her unexpected skill with weapons that had inspired Charles' admiration.  But that was before he learned about the darkness within her that sprang from the same place as her hunting abilities.

"Cordy needs rest," Connor said firmly, not realizing he was echoing his father's words.  "We should go.  Now."

"The little mama has had quite the day," Lorne agreed, politely pushing his way through the throng on the stairs to reach the mother-to-be in the living room.  "A road trip a sardine would have had second thoughts about taking, a Pop-n-Fresh bundle of joy in the oven, not enough rest stops on the highway...it's been hell."

"Not quite," Angel said dryly.

Spike snorted with derision.  "Always with the hell card; you just can't let it go, can you?"

"Tell you what, Spike: you try it for a few decades and then we'll talk."  Angel did, however, look slightly embarrassed when he faced Buffy.  Jokes about hell were a lot easier to pull off when he didn't have to see the guilt in her eyes, guilt for something that was never her fault.

"Hey, speaking of hell," Xander chimed in, "now that we have a branch office of Slayers Inc., how about taking MiniMe with you where he belongs, Angel?"

"Oh no," Cordelia immediately objected.  "We're not taking Buffy's leftovers home."

"Cordy's right."  Connor, as expected, seconded his beloved's opinion.  "We can't take a vampire in; it's not safe."

Xander shook his head.  "Got news for you, kid; you're already taking a vampire in."

"No, the vampire is taking everyone else in.  It's my house."  Angel cast a level glance at Spike, taking care that the full measure of his disgust showed in his eyes.  "And I choose who stays there."

"Doesn't he have a crypt or something anyway?"  Cordelia sighed, impatiently tapping her foot on the hardwood floor.  "Or maybe a cave?  Even a tree branch to hang upside down from would work in a pinch."

"He has a name," Spike said stridently.  "And he lives here."

Angel's head snapped quickly from Spike to Buffy.  With all that Willow had told him about Buffy's 'relationship' with Spike, she had neglected to mention that his childe was living in Buffy's house.

Buffy could see the question flashing in Angel's eyes, but he seemed to be having trouble regaining control over his vocal chords.  To help him out, she offered, "He's staying in the basement."   For Spike's benefit, however, she quickly added, "And he doesn't have to leave.  To quote a certain someone, this is my house and I choose who stays here."

"And some of us are staying here because we can't leave you here with him, especially not since his chip was removed."  Xander turned back to Angel.  "Be a pal, just this once, Angel.  The mansion is big; you almost wouldn't know he was there.  And you'd be there to keep him in line, and so would Faith."  He barreled ahead, trying to anticipate and refute objections before they were posed.  "And you don't have that many people to guard, while we have all these someday slayers, plus Dawn.  It just makes sense for you to take him."

"Angel, no," Cordelia said firmly.  "He can't stay with us."  She rubbed on hand fretfully over her swollen belly.  "I wouldn't feel safe."

"I said he could stay here."  Buffy glared at Xander.  "And anyone who doesn't feel comfortable with that can ask Angel if they can stay at the mansion instead of Spike."

Angel feverishly sorted through his options.  He could take Spike with him and send the others to a hotel; with Faith along they should be able to protect themselves.  Except Faith was also a target, which was part of the reason he'd kept her with him rather than try harder to slip her back into the prison.  He could stay here along with Spike, except having Spike in the house at all was far from safe, and that was assuming Buffy even agreed to let him stay.  He could beg Buffy to oust Spike, but he knew his chance for success was about equal to the odds of him getting a good tan this summer.  Or he could simply stake Spike right here and now and make the question of his residence moot.

Of all the choices, the last was his favorite.  Unfortunately it was the only one he absolutely could not do, not if he wanted to know why Buffy hadn't staked Spike yet herself.  There had to be a reason, and he had to know what it was.

The reason she was obviously trying to make him believe...he simply refused to accept.

Angel forced his answer past his conscience and his lips, addressing it directly to Xander; he was afraid to look at Buffy right now.  "He can't stay with me.  I have people I'm responsible for, and I won't put them in a danger I can avoid."

Buffy flushed as his message hit home, but giving in was not an option for her either.  She set her jaw and responded with icy precision.  "No one's asking you to."

"Gives a fellow a real cozy feeling when everyone pretends he's not standing in the same room with them."  Spike's voice dripped with scorn.  "What's the matter, Angelus?  Eyesight going in your old age?  I'm right here, you know; soul and all." He bared his teeth in a wolfish smile.  "That's right: a soul.  I'm a credit to humanity now, not a danger."

"Don't even try," Angel warned him, his words lashing out with a ferocity that frightened even Buffy.  "I don't know if you're just shining these people on or if you've actually started to believe those cock-eyed stories Dru made up about your poor tortured past; it doesn't really matter."  He took a step closer to the younger vampire, dropping his voice to a low growl.  "What does matter is that you remember I know what you really were.  And I have no reason to believe 120 years of a demon's memories have sweetened your disposition."

Buffy didn't understand what Angel was alluding to, or rather she didn't want to understand.  All she wanted to do was go kill something evil, to bring some good into this nightmare of a night.

"Look, none of this should've even been brought up," she said.  "It's stupid to argue over it."

Spike cast her a look of deeply wounded pride; he might not have expected a better defense from her against Angel, but he certainly felt he'd earned it.  "Nice of you to take it to heart so, luv," he sniffed before he vanished down the stairs.

"Quick," Xander said, "someone lock the basement door.  Then we all make a run for it and the last one out throws a match back in to torch the place."

Buffy controlled her temper with great difficulty; Xander's humor was wearing rather thin on her nerves these days.  "I am going hunting," she said with great precision.  "Just as soon as I clean up the mess you've made.  Again."

There was a moment of silence after Buffy opened the basement door and started down the steps to Spike's domain.  Finally Faith couldn't stand it any longer.

"Hey, hunting, me and B.  Just like old times."

"Faith," Angel began.

"No worries, Chief," she swiftly reassured him.  "I'll be on my best 'I want to make parole my first time up' behavior."

He gazed steadily at the basement door.  "It's not you I'm worried about."

* * * * *

Even if he hadn't heard the light tread on the basement steps, Spike would have known when Buffy came into his orbit.  She gave off a certain vibe that was part predator and part lost child, and completely unique. He had never met another slayer like her, anymore than she'd ever met a vampire like him.

Except, of course, for the starter kit.

"Managed to tear yourself away from the amazing Angel, did you now?  That must have been quite the heartbreaker.  Hope you didn't leave on my account."  

She stopped momentarily midway down the stairs, a guilty pause it seemed to Spike.  Then she started walking again, one hand trailing down the railing, the other dangling limply by her side.

"I wanted to make sure we're clear on the living arrangements," Buffy said calmly.  "A lot of stuff got said up there, but this is my house."  She sighed as she came to rest at the foot of the steps.  "Even if it does seem pretty much like a commune these days."

"I won't stay where I'm not welcome," he said stiffly.

She took a few more anxious steps towards him, though she stopped just out of arm's reach.  "I told you that you could stay.  I told you that I needed you to stay.  What more do I have to say?"

"Say he'll be leaving.  No, wait," he held up his hand, realizing he'd pushed just a little too hard.  "Don't.  It's your house, like you say.  I'm just lucky you let me stay here."  

He saw a flash of what almost looked like impatience, followed quickly by annoyance, but he didn't have time to ponder her expressions; she was too busy showering him with excuses.

"I tried to make him go," she said urgently.  "He's not staying here, and I tried to convince him they should all go back to LA.  We don't need him...them...here; I told him that."  She turned up her palms.  "He won't go."

"Can't say it looked much like you wanted him to."  Spike dropped his chin towards the floor and gazed up at her through his lashes.  "Not the way you were hanging on him when I came downstairs."

"I had to be sure it was him.  You know what damage the First could do pretending to be Angel; they all trust..." her voice fell off as she realized the comparison her comment could call up.

"Yeah, they do trust him, don't they?"  Her slip had not gone unnoticed by Spike.  "Good old Angel, saint of the souled.  He's even got his own little cult following now.  We new souls haven't got half a chance to measure up to Wonder Boy."

"I don't know what you want me to say.  I didn't ask him here, I've asked him to leave, and I've asked you not to.  I'm...," she shrugged helplessly, "out of ask."

He raised his head to look straight into her eyes.  "You're the only one who believes I'm good now.  You're the only one who trusts me.  If you don't...if I thought you didn't...I don't think I'd believe in me either.  You're the only thing that keeps me on track."

"I...have to go now."  She backed up a few steps, careful not to lose her hold on Spike's attention.  He had to believe her.  "I have to talk to Faith; maybe she can get Angel to leave."

He smiled as he remembered the dark-haired slayer cozying up to his sire.  The girl was no Buffy, of course, but the old man might be persuaded to go where he was most needed.  The souled part of him always was a sucker for the underdog.

"Yeah, you do that, pet.  You talk to her and she can talk to him.  Seems like he listens pretty closely to her these days."

Buffy opened her mouth as though to say something, but then shut it before any words could be committed to the air.  Instead she turned on her heel and ran lightly up the stairs.

* * * * *

Despite her longer legs, Faith had to hurry to keep up with Buffy.  The older slayer had only said a curt, "Let's go," when she came up from her basement encounter with Spike, and she hadn't said another word in the ten minutes since then.  Faith was beginning to think they were stalking vampire mimes when Buffy finally acknowledged her existence.

"Why are you here, Faith?" she asked abruptly, not even looking at her companion.

"Hey, you asked me on this date," the younger girl protested.  "What, did you forget?  Don't tell me that memory thing is contagious."

"What memory thing?" Buffy asked sharply.  She stopped on the path that ran through the middle of the cemetery and turned to look at Faith.  "Who's having a memory thing?"

Faith realized she had inadvertently spilled something Angel was not yet ready to share, despite his private little confab with Buffy before she went out earlier.  

"Never mind; it was a joke."

Buffy sighed but decided to put off her questions until later.  Right now she had more important things to discuss.

"I want to know why you're here in Sunnydale.  Why did you come with Angel...and all the others," she added hastily, trying to cover her instinctive flare of jealousy.

"Oh, that?"  Faith waved her motives away with a quick brushing gesture.  "To save the world, natch.  Isn't that what we do?"

"That's what I do," was the sharp response.

The younger slayer answered her lightly, though there was more truth in her words than she would ever admit.  "You know you're my role model, B."

"How about I know when you're lying to me?"

Faith started walking again, glancing quickly from one side of the path to the other as she spoke.

"Look, I was out of jail anyway, so I figured what the heck, I'll help save the world, catch up with some old...enemies, and then just kick back till it's time to hokey myself back to the pokey."

"Which you broke out of to save Angel's soul," Buffy said slowly.  She walked alongside Faith, her crossbow dangling by her side in a deceptively casual fashion.  Only Faith was close enough to see the tight grip she maintained on it.

Faith shook her head.  "Willow did the soul-saving; I was in charge of ass-kicking."  Without thinking, she rubbed the side of her neck as she continued, "That Angelus packs a hell of a wallop; I'm not sure how you got the best of him solo."

"Did he bite you?"  

Buffy grabbed Faith's hand away from her neck, but there was no sign of any wounds, vampire-induced or otherwise, on the younger girl's throat.  Her eyes, however, were another story.

"Yeah, he did," Faith admitted, abandoning hope of getting out of this without some disclosure.  Maybe it was for the best anyway – less chance of slip-ups.  "That's how I took him down – drugs in my blood.  But don't say anything about it to Angel, okay?  He...well, he kind of doesn't remember."

"None of it?"

"Not a lick."  She grinned ruefully and rubbed her neck again.  "If you can pardon the pun."

Buffy breathed a sigh of relief she wasn't even aware she'd been holding in.  "Good.  I hope he never remembers."

Faith eyed her shrewdly.  "Why should you care?"

"I care," Buffy said flatly.  "That's why I think you should go.  All of you," she added before Faith could respond.  "Go back to LA and wait.  See if we all die screaming.  If we do, you can say 'I told you so,' and then you can save the world."

"Sorry, no can do."  Faith held up her hands in surrender.  "If the big Kahuna is staying...and you know he is...then so am I.  And so is the rest of the tribe, I can already tell you that."

"Why?  Why would you stay here and die just because Angel wants to?"

"I owe him," was Faith's quiet response.  She stopped walking and turned to face Buffy head on.  "He stood by me when no one else would, not even you."

"I tried to help you, Faith," Buffy snapped.  "You're the one who threw it back in my face and tried to kill my boyfriend."  She raised her hand and waved her index finger under Faith's nose for emphasis.  "After, oh, after you tried to steal his soul."

"You didn't try to help me," Faith argued, pushing Buffy's hand away from her face.  "You tried to straighten out a rogue Slayer and make her fly right because we're supposed to be all about Truth, Justice and the American Way...even though I've noticed a lot of slayers don't seem to be American anymore."  

"So it's my fault you went for a walk on the dark side?" Buffy challenged.  "Because I didn't love you for you from the get-go?"

"You were the one you didn't love, B, not me."  Faith leaned over and pulled a knife from her boot.  Standing up straight again, she began to twirl the knife between her fingers.  "That dark side you keep talking about is in you too, but you were too afraid to admit it back then; you were scared something bad would happen if you did." The knife stopped twirling; she held it fast in her palm, remembering the earlier scene in Buffy's living room.  Remembering Angel's hurt, Spike's smugness...and Buffy' nervousness.   "Looks like you were right, too."

Buffy groaned.  "Can we please leave Spike out of this?"

"Did I say anything about Spike?"  Faith was suddenly the picture of innocence.  "Funny that he's what you thought of, though, when I mentioned your dark side."

"He's what everybody means when they talk about my 'dark side.'  But he's not anymore, not dark."  Once again she brought forth her argument, expecting no more success with Faith than with anyone else.  "He has a soul now."

"Yeah, I heard."

Buffy tried again, though she wasn't sure why.  "He's good now."

"Because he has a soul?"  Faith's voice rose, radiating surprise.  "I'll be damned; I was good the whole time and no one knew it, not even me."  She forced a small chuckle.  "Bet that judge who sentenced me for murder is gonna feel pretty silly too."

"Okay, okay; so it's not a free pass through the Pearly Gates."  That much at least was safe to concede.  "But he can be good now; he has the choice."

Faith smiled grimly.  "You make it sound easy."

"I didn't say..."

"I wasn't always the bad girl, you know," Faith said over Buffy's protest.  "I'm not saying I led the Sunday school choir or anything, but I never hurt anyone except myself.  I never wanted to."

"Faith, this is really fascinating, but," Buffy shoved Faith onto the ground and fell on top of her as a knife arced through the space where Faith's head had just been, "can we fight first and bond later?"

"Showtime," Faith agreed as they both jumped to their feet.

The vampires had obviously been a gang in life as well as in death, judging by both weapons choice and the matching tattoos.  They made a formidable enemy, but they were no match for two slayers at full power.  Faith enjoyed the chance to use her skills the way she was meant to, but she was surprised to find that Buffy was the one making the riskiest moves these days.  The older girl fought with a grim determination, never missing an opportunity, no matter how slight, to get in another blow.  It was only a matter of a few minutes before the slayers were once more the only ones in the cemetery.  

"It wasn't until I was called," Faith continued, as though she had never stopped speaking, "that I started losing the line between should and shouldn't."  She squatted down and began to swipe her blade across the damp grass.  "So you figure I walked on the dark side for a year, slept on the sidelines for another 8 months, and then let the beast out again for about two weeks."  

Faith stopped cleaning the blood off of her knife and stood up, looking somberly at Buffy.  "A year, B, and I fight it every single day.  Every day I have to remind myself why I don't want to give in."  She drew a deep breath; it wasn't easy revealing this much of herself, especially to Buffy.  "Angel's been fighting it for a hundred years, give or take a hiccup, and you don't see him shrugging it off as no big deal.  So why is Spike so special?  What makes his inner demon so easy to send to bed without supper?"

"I didn't say it was easy," Buffy explained, wishing she'd never mentioned Spike's name.  "But he's trying.  I'm just giving him the chance."

"Must be nice.  So hey, you be sure to let me know when my number comes up on that second chance list, okay?"

Buffy smiled sourly at her as she hefted her crossbow over her shoulder.  "You're still breathing, aren't you?"

* * * * *

  Angel and Wesley were waiting up for her in the Great Hall, as Faith had known they would be.  In a way it was nice, like having a couple of big brothers to look out for her the way she would have killed for as a kid.  In another way it was a little unnerving, because these weren't your run-of-the-mill pigtail-pulling kind of big brothers, and the truth was she had sort of killed to get them.

They had been talking quietly when she came in, but as soon as he heard the door close Angel turned around to greet her.  

"How did it go?"

She tossed her weapons on the coffee table and slouched on the other end of the couch where Angel sat.  "Not bad.  We took out a few vamps, Buffy read me the riot act about horning in on her apocalypse and then we came home."

Angel exchanged a glance with Wesley; apparently the men had been discussing Buffy's attitude while she'd been out experiencing it.  

"She's really wired about the First Evil being back," Angel said at length.  "That and...other things.  You can't let her get to you, Faith; she's not herself."  His eyes grew distant.  "At least she's not the Buffy I remember."

"That was a long time ago, Angel," Wesley said with a gentleness he seldom showed anymore.  "She's a woman now, not a girl, and one who's been through some very trying times.  They can...change a person."  His jaw tightened as he thought of Lilah, of the axe slicing through her slender white throat.  "Harden them."

Angel shook his head.  "It's more than that, I can feel it."

Faith stood up; it had been a long day, and an even longer week.  "No argument here, big guy, but what any of us can do about it...well, you got me.  Stake the stiff maybe, for a start.  Then give Xander a humor transplant and take the stick out of Willow's..."

"Faith," Angel cautioned, his 'dad' voice sounding weary after a long day of use.

"Right, sorry."  Faith grinned.  "Fred might hear.  Or are you worried about Wesley's delicate ears this time?"

"Just mine," Angel answered, reluctantly matching her grin.  "Are you going up to bed now?"

"Just point me the way."

It was Wesley's turn to stand up and stretch.  "I'll show you; I'm going to turn in myself."

"Oh never turn yourself in, Wes," Faith advised as they started for the stairs.  "Make them come to you."

"Most amusing, Faith," he murmured.  "And have you been waiting the whole week to say that, or did you make it up on patrol?"

Their voices faded away as they mounted the steps towards the upstairs bedrooms, leaving Angel alone by the dying fire.   He didn't mind the solitude, even though he had grown more sociable in recent years.  Tonight he needed to be alone.  

He was desperately trying to match memories against what he had seen tonight so that the results would make sense, but no matter how he put the pieces together there was one missing.  There was more going on here than Buffy was telling him, but he didn't know if that which was hidden concerned the First Evil or Buffy herself.  And until he found out, he wasn't sure how he could help.  He was beginning to doubt he could even after he learned the truth.

Cordelia slipped down the stairs without him realizing it, so deeply was he lost in inner visions.  He didn't become aware of his friend's presence until she sat down next to him on the couch.

"So, I'm guessing we're back in the era of Buffy-face," she said with resignation.  "Darn, I thought we left that behind with the Clinton years."

He started guiltily, and then had to hold back a surge of annoyance at his reaction.  For this, at least, he had no reason to feel guilty.  Whatever he and Cordelia might have had was no longer pertinent; she had made her choice and it was Connor.  And if he was honest, Angel was secretly relieved.  Of all that he had forgotten the past few weeks, he had not forgotten his dream of perfect happiness, or the night he flashed back to as the expression of it.  Cordelia meant a lot to him, and he was fairly certain she felt the same way about him, but they were not each other's happiness.

"This place brings it all back," he said, waving his hand at the Great Hall.  "I thought it was hard being in her home but this...this was..."

"Your home," she agreed softly.  "As in the plural.  More or less."

"Less, but I wanted more."  He smiled wistfully.  "It just wasn't possible."

"But it is now," she said, surprising him.  "I know Willow and Lorne worked out that spell to make your body the sanctuary for your soul.  Nothing can kick or pull it out of you now; you've got a soul condom."

His smile turned into a wince.  "You really know how to put the romance into a moment, don't you?"

"I'm just being practical."  She shrugged.  "You've always loved her, I know that.  But when I had the visions of your past, I realized how much."

Angel suddenly felt sick with shame.  When she told him that she'd been a witness to all the chaos he created during his long life, he had thought only of Angelus.  It never occurred to him to wonder what Angel had done that might make loving him seem futile.

"Cordy, I never meant to..."

She held up her arms and crossed them over her face.  "I had a two-hour drive today in an overcrowded car sitting next to a murderess; I really don't want to take a guilt trip on top of it.  Get over it."

"That seems to be the phrase of the day."

She eyed him shrewdly as she lowered her arms.  "Don't let Spike get to you.  I can't believe even Buffy's standards have slipped so low that she pays attention to that little genocidal dye job."

"Neither can I; that's the problem."

Cordelia patted his knee, and then braced herself on it as she rose.  "Don't let her dictate the terms this time; just keep after her.  But only her," she warned.  "Leave the new prince of soul out of it."

"Easier said than done."

"I mean it, Angel.  No woman likes to have her nose rubbed in the fact that she slept with the wrong guy, especially by the right guy."

Angel smiled a little at her sage words of advice.  As much as he had come to trust Cordelia's opinion over the years, it always amused him when she gave him advice about women.  As though he, who had survived the literal slings and arrows of sexual politics for over two centuries, was just an innocent boy.

"Don't worry, Cordy; I'll watch every word I say," he promised.  He rose to his feet and moved around the end of the sofa, headed for the downstairs bedroom where Buffy had stored her things.  "But I appreciate the advice," he added over his shoulder.  

"You're not listening to me; I can tell."

He turned around and raised his hands in mock surrender.  "I'm listening, I swear.  I'm also going to bed.  Do you need a hand up the stairs?"

She made a face.  "No, I can make it by myself."

"I would have given you the downstairs bedroom, but it's right off of the living room," he explained as he cupped her elbow and walked her to the stairs.  "I thought you'd get more rest upstairs at the end of the hall."

"And I will," she agreed, "as soon as I get some juice."  She patted her stomach.  "Low blood sugar."

Angel immediately released her arm and took a step towards the kitchen.  "I'll go get it."

She grabbed his hand and held on firmly.  "No, go to bed.  I can get the stupid juice.  I'm not helpless, you know; just pregnant."

His eyes involuntarily settled on her stomach, and then skipped guiltily away.  Whatever was contained within her could not be human, not the way it was growing.  And yet it had already become a part of Cordelia.  How they would determine its true purpose, and what they must do to ensure it caused no harm, he didn't even want to think about.

"I guess I'll just turn in, then," he murmured.  "Good night."

"Good night," she echoed, shooing him off with a little wave of her hand.  When at last she saw him disappear into the back bedroom she relaxed her stiff spine and rubbed her belly.  "I thought he'd never leave; how about you?"

She started walking towards the kitchen, her head bent low to continue the conversation with her unborn child.

"But at least the memory charm seems to be working.  And he's all primed to make a run at Spike."  She stopped to stretch, swinging her arms up and over her head to work all the kinks out.  "Sometimes this is all just too easy.  At least with Angel and Faith, that is."  She sighed, dropping her arms to her side and resuming her weary trudge towards the kitchen.  "Buffy, on the other hand, is gonna take a little work."

* * * * *

To Be Continued 


	3. Chapter 3

Dead End 

**Part 3**

By Gem 

The Summers' kitchen bustled with its usual early morning chaos.  In the early days of SIT occupation, Buffy had tried to pass off cereal as a complete breakfast, but the tastes and nutritional requirements of growing slayers had forced her to abandon her attempts to avoid cooking.  To be fair, Willow helped as much as she could, given her predominantly early morning classes.  And Xander set the table and helped clear plates, as did Dawn.  But she was the one who invited the SITs into her home, so the majority of the work fell to Buffy.  And Andrew, but only if she decided it wasn't one of his "I want to kill you all because Warren told me to" days.  

This being one of Andrew's 'crush-kill-destroy' mornings, Buffy was flying solo on the frying pans.  With time rapidly running out before she would be officially late for work, the last thing she expected or wanted to see, was six more heads pop into the kitchen in search of sustenance.

"Hey, B, what's for breakfast?"  Faith sauntered into the kitchen, or at least she tried to saunter.  Given the sheer number of people edging for space at the counter, the table and leaning up against the walls, any movement whatsoever could be considered a triumph of flexibility.

"Breakfast?" Buffy asked blankly.  "As in me getting something for you?"  She looked at the cluster of heads framing Faith's and added, "All of you?"

"We can help ourselves, of course," Wesley said quickly.  "We wouldn't even have come, except you mentioned last night... and so we didn't bother to stop at the... if it's too much trouble, we can go," he finished awkwardly.  Seeing the girl who had once flouted his authority with such cheerful disregard reduced to chief cook and bottle washer at a slayer hotel suddenly threw him back years in social aplomb, back to his awkward schoolboy days.

Too late Buffy remembered her hurried offer of the night before.  She hadn't meant it; it had only been a ploy to get out of the house.  Still, an invitation didn't have to be sincere to count; years of vampire slaying had hammered that one home on the tip of a stake.  

"No, stay.  Find a seat if you can or just," she waved a vague hand at the room in general, "lean somewhere.  Try to stay out of the living room, though."  She pushed a lock of hair off her face with the back of her wrist and grimaced.  "Once one person goes, everyone goes, and then Buffy ends up spending Saturday morning vacuuming bread crumbs out of the drapes."

The A.I. team slipped in around the edges of the kitchen, standing where there was room, and finding that precious commodity.  Buffy counted heads again, telling herself it was just to figure out how many more eggs she would need.

"Where's Angel?" she asked.  "And, umm, Lorne.  That is his name, right?"

"Have you looked out the window yet today, Buffy?" Cordelia asked, using her abdomen to nudge her way over to the table.  "It's all bright and shiny and oh so very flammable out there."

"Well, what about Lorne?  Doesn't he eat people food?"

Gunn chuckled; her attitude towards demons was one he hadn't encountered in a long time, at least in someone who wasn't pointing a weapon at him.  Once upon a time he'd also thought demons were something strange and exotic, but after three years with Angel Investigations they had lost most of their mystique.  Slayers, however, kept surprising him.

"Lorne's got high standards, that's all," he explained, pulling back a chair for Fred when an SIT vacated it.  "He's the king of restaurant food... really good restaurant food." 

"Not that you're not a good cook," Fred added hastily, nudging Gunn with her elbow.  "I'm sure you are.  And Lorne doesn't have any reason to believe that you're not.  It's not like he read your soul or anything.  Or that cooking skills would show in someone's soul either."  Her forehead wrinkled.  "Unless maybe if you're destined to be a great chef, like that girl in Vegas..."

"Angel's cooking has spoiled us all, I'm afraid," Wesley interrupted, before Fred could meander any further from the point.  "Lorne thought he would wait for us to get breakfast and bring back supplies so that Angel could get the kitchen set up."  He offered Faith the chair vacated by another departing SIT.  "That was the excuse, at least.  He's really staying to keep Angel company."

"Angel needs someone to keep him company?" Xander asked skeptically.  "Someone breathing?"

"My father and Lorne are friends," Connor said stiffly.  "They enjoy talking to each other."  

He was ill at ease standing in a room full of strangers, and there wasn't much room between the back of Cordelia's chair and the wall.  But to Connor's surprise it was the slight to Angel that made him the most uncomfortable.

"So Angel's a good cook?"  Buffy was still a few steps back, trying to picture Angel in the same position she found herself in each morning... and doing better at it than she was.  

"And how," Cordelia said with heart.  "He does an eggs benedict you wouldn't believe.  And that soufflé he made for Christmas dinner a few years ago – do you remember that?" she asked Gunn.

"Oh yeah," Gunn answered with a dazed smile.  "That was amazing."  He only came back from his reverie when an SIT offered him the chair next to Fred, which he took with hesitation.

"I remember Lorne kept trying to distract us all so that he could take extra helpings," Wesley added with a chuckle.  "That was the first time he'd ever sampled Angel's cooking; he was still living at Caritas then."  The smile faded from the Watcher's face as other, less pleasant, memories crowded in.  "That was just a few weeks before Connor was born."

Willow shot a startled glance at Connor and cleared her throat.  "So, umm, exactly how many Christmases ago was this?"

"That was a really nice day," Fred said wistfully.  She reached out to touch Gunn's hand, and fought back the quiver in her voice when she felt the effort it took for him not to flinch.  "The food, I mean.  It was wonderful."

"Speaking of... food," Cordelia picked up a charred piece of sausage from the platter by her left hand and banged it against the table's edge.  "If Buffy squeezes this, do you think we could get a good price for the diamond?"

Kennedy leaned over and gently, but firmly, removed the sausage from Cordelia's hand.  She had a few very creative ideas of where she could suggest Cordelia put it instead, but Willow had spent considerable time last night emphasizing the need for cooperation.  In that spirit, the SIT forced a polite smile to accompany some choice words of advice.

"In a room full of slayers, you really don't want to be giving us ideas about what we could use as weapons."

Buffy made a great show of checking her watch, and carefully hid her scan of the room for signs of Spike.  The coast being sunny, it was therefore also clear, allowing her to make a suggestion.  

"Listen, I have to get to work, but maybe I could drop off some food for Lorne on my way."  She didn't wait for a response, but hurried on.  "I mean if you still have to hit the grocery store before you go back to the mansion, he could be in for a long wait for breakfast."

"We don't want to put you out, Buff."  Faith smiled widely, knowing Buffy's offer had little to do with an overwhelming concern for Lorne's welfare.  "Wes and I will eat fast and make a really quick grocery run.  He's got the list and the debit card; I've got the muscle to carry the bags."

Fred ducked her chin down for a moment and then drew a deep breath and faced the music.  "Actually, Faith, Angel wanted you to go with me to get you some clothes and stuff.  Since you're not going back to... since you're not going back for a while, he thought you'd need things."

Faith laughed, though she was secretly touched by Angel's gesture.  "And what, I'm not allowed out on my own?"

"Well you are kind of an escaped prisoner," Xander pointed out.

"No, that's not it," Fred insisted.  "Angel told us last night he doesn't want any of us going out on our own."  She glanced around the room, registered the expressions that ranged from confused to amused, and felt compelled to explain.  "He said the First Evil can only be seen by one person at a time.  If two or more of us are together and one of us starts talking to the fichus... well, then we'll know something's up."

Angel's words of wisdom had already grown old for Xander.  "How about if I just happen to like talking to the fichus?" he challenged Fred.  "Maybe it's a good listener."

Faith smiled broadly at him.  "Without ears, it's at least got to be a happier one than most of us."

"Besides," Willow said as she pressed a hand over Xander's mouth, "the First has appeared to a couple of us at once before.  It even pretended to be a potential slayer and slept over.  I think Angel's just thinking of the way it haunted him."  

"Yet another clue gone to waste."  Wesley's sigh, however, was only partly motivated by on-the-job frustration; the rest was owing to hunger.  No doubt due to the large number of calories burned while training, the SITs could really pack in their breakfasts.  And they did, regardless of those standing by waiting for a seat at the table.

Buffy put down the spatula after shoveling yet another stack of stack of slightly blackened slices of French toast onto a plate.  "Listen, someone needs to take over the griddle so I can get to work.  Will, are you..."

"On my way to the classes I already missed two days of this week?"  The witch shrugged helplessly as she edged her way towards the back door.  "Yup, 'fraid so.  Sorry."

"Xander?"

Xander held up his hands and waved them.  "Even if these hands were meant for women's work like cooking... I so have to get to work.  My guys should have started a half-hour ago.  Sorry, Buff."

Buffy gazed around the room, considering and discarding most of the SITs she saw.  She had learned from harsh experience that the ability to cook was apparently a trade-off for slayerly superpowers, because so far every one of them shared her view of a waffle iron as both weapon and natural enemy.

"I can do it," Connor suggested quietly.  He flushed when heads began turning towards him.  "I'm no chef, but I've seen my fath... that is I've seen people cooking and I've tried it myself and..."

"Anything that wasn't alive and running around with fur on its back five minutes before it hit the skillet?" Gunn asked doubtfully.

Rona pushed her plate away and stood up.  "Okay, that does it for me."

"But I want to hear the critter-fritter stories later," Xander requested as he slipped out behind Willow.  "Just hear, though!" he called back anxiously through the closed door.

Connor found himself in an awkward position.  The last thing he wanted to confess was the number of times he had shadowed his father at the hotel, watching as Angel dealt with clients, talked to his friends, cooked meals, trained or even just read a book.  He was pretty sure Angel had known he was there, though his father never acknowledged his presence.  Neither wanted to risk the tenuous bond between them, when all the regular channels of communication were rife with pitfalls.

"I want to help," he said at last.  "Cordy needs food, and so do the others."  He nodded at the dwindling food supply on the table and the SITs still enthusiastically carbo-loading.  "To keep up their strength for battle."

Molly's hand froze over the syrup pitcher.  "I just like French toast."

"French toast?  Is that what that... never mind."  Wesley closed his eyes as he slid into Rona's former seat, and mentally added a small complement of medical supplies to the grocery list.

"Connor, catch."  Buffy tossed the spatula to Connor and rinsed her hands in the sink.  "Okay, I'm off to guide the little hooligans back onto the straight and narrow."

Faith choked on her piece of toast.  As Gunn pounded on her back, she croaked out, "Atta girl, B.  You'll get one yet."

Buffy ignored Faith, focusing on Wesley instead.  She rested her hand on his shoulder as she leaned over to ask, "Are you sure I shouldn't stop by Angel's... I mean the mansion, with some food for Lorne?"

Wesley cleared his throat and searched for the kindest way to answer, one that would not reference anything scorched, runny or... he tasted the oatmeal and winced... heavily salted.  While he silently composed this masterpiece of tact and diplomacy, Cordelia jumped in with both feet.

"Buffy, the guy's been back for a day... not even.  Give him some space."

Buffy straightened up and cast a scornful look at her old nemesis.  "I don't know what you're talking about.  Why would Lorne need space?"

"Oh sure, we're talking about Lorne."  Cordelia raised a spoonful of scrambled eggs to her lips, but paused before eating it to add, "I know you want to run right over and show Angel how domestic you are now... like that's some sort of big turn on.  But let him come to you; he needs to be the aggressor."  She took an experimental sip from the spoon.  "It's a guy thing," she finished with a sigh, as she reluctantly abandoned the eggs.

Buffy controlled her temper with great difficulty.  She wanted to snap at Cordelia for making assumptions she had no right to make, and for protecting Angel from someone who would be the least likely to harm him.  But the room was full of impressionable SITs, as well as a few people she had no intention of showing her weak spots to, such as Angel's son.

"I'm just going to grab my purse," the Slayer said stiffly.  She turned on her heel and pushed her way out of the kitchen.

"I think you upset her," Fred said hesitantly.  It wasn't like Cordelia to be quite so cavalier with people's feelings, and it was starting to make Fred a little uncomfortable, like she had to keep apologizing for her friend.

"Way to go, Cor."  Faith glanced at Cordelia, though there wasn't much fellow feeling in the grin she flashed at the Seer.  "I didn't realize you were still so good at sticking the needles under Buffy's fingernails."

Cordelia sighed dramatically.  "Haven't you people ever heard of reverse psychology?"

Connor looked up from the frying pan, spatula poised over half-scrambled eggs.  "No.  What is it?"

Cordelia assumed an expression of supreme and beneficent patience, befitting a former higher being about to impart the secrets of the universe.  And in a way she was, it just wasn't all the secrets she knew.  It was the Reader's Digest Condensed ® Secrets of the Universe.  Volume 1.  Chapter 1.

Cliff Notes ® version.

"For all the thousand ways that they're from 2 totally different planets... in different galaxies... Buffy and Angel have one thing in common:  the best way to get them to do something is to say 'no,' 'don't' or 'stop.'  And not in that order."  Cordelia shook her head as she realized she needed to add a proviso.  "Especially not if you're talking about sex."

Connor wrinkled his nose in disgust; his relationship with Angel was shaky enough without being forced to deal with the idea of his father having sex.  Ever.

"I can see why you'd have Angel down like a book, but what makes you the expert on all things Buffy?"  Faith popped an orange wedge in her mouth – it seemed the safest fare on the table until Connor showed if he inherited any of Angel's domestic skills – and waited for an answer.

"Oh I know Buffy," Cordelia answered with a tiny smile.  "Better than you can imagine."  Abruptly her smile grew brighter, and she hoped less mysterious, when she realized they were all looking at her strangely.  "Hey, I've worked for Monosyllabic Man for 4 years.  You think I haven't picked up a clue or two in all that time about the woman who makes him wax poly?  I'm telling you, all you have to do is tell them do the opposite of what you want."

"What's the opposite of what you want?" Buffy asked, hurrying back into the room.  

Her attention was focused on a small shelf above the counter, searching for the car keys that had often proved so invaluable for unlocking doors and starting engines.  After a moment, however, she noticed the silence that had greeted her question.  She glanced around the room and repeated herself.

"What's the opposite of what you want?"

"No, I was saying opposites attract, whether you want them to or not," Cordelia corrected her brightly.  "Like Fred and Gunn.  The Brainiac and the Brawniac; go figure."

Buffy frowned, her forehead wrinkling with both confusion and concern as she beheld the very silent, very rigid, Fred and Gunn.

"Okay," the Slayer said slowly, "sure.  That, umm, makes perfect... you know," she spied her keys and seized them, cravenly turning towards the living room door an instant later.   "I, umm, really have to be go... in fact, I'm actually already gone."

There was silence in the kitchen until they all heard the front door loudly closing, and then the rank and file erupted.

"That's O for 2, Cor.  Haven't the past 4 years with Wes taught you anything about the value of just stammering your way out of a tight spot?"  Suddenly Faith was looking forward to some quality time with Fred, or Wes, or even Connor if necessary, almost anyone but Cordelia. 

"I resent that," Wesley sputtered.  "I do not stammer.  In fact I received considerable accolades for my elocution in, well, all right it was in school, but..."

"Well, all right, yeah," the Slayer flashed back.  "Sounds like an, umm, stammer to me."

"Meanwhile, back in Kansas, thanks for the ego-boost, Cordy," Gunn huffed.  "Wouldn't want to think you guys only loved me for the way I solve crossword puzzles."

"I thought I was getting better with the broadsword," Fred mumbled, flushing miserably.  "Angel said I was."  Suddenly she wondered if her efforts to fight by Charles' side were just a point of fun for her friends.

"She was only trying to cover herself.  Did you want her to tell Buffy what she was trying to do?"  Connor didn't like what had just happened, but he had to stand by Cordelia.  She was his family now, not these people.

"Perhaps if she didn't attempt to arrange events to her satisfaction, we wouldn't need to cover anything up."  Wesley's lips were pressed tightly together to bite back any further harsh words.  Less than a day back in Sunnydale and suddenly everyone was splintering into factions.  Was it the SITs, the apocalypse, the hellmouth or the Scoobies who wielded such devastating power?

"All I want to do is help."  Cordelia sounded on the edge of tears.  "I'm trying to do what's best for everyone.  I wish you could all see that."  She tossed her paper napkin onto the table and pushed her chair out, getting up with the aid of an SIT sitting next to her.  "I'm going out to the living room to rest for a little while; I wouldn't want to ruin anyone's breakfast with my hideous self."

"Cordelia, wait!" Connor called after her.

"Let her go, Connor," Wesley said heavily.  "I think we all need a rest right now."

"Or something to kill," Faith muttered.  She flushed as head after head swung her way, all faces mirroring the same state of alarm.  "Just kidding," she protested, holding up her hands.  "It was a joke; I swear.  No homicidal tendencies here, none at all.  This house is clean."

Wesley glanced pointedly at the basement door.  "I believe that depends on your definition of clean."

* * * * * 

The sword gleamed in the light of the dusty 100-watt bulb.

"Just like new," Spike boasted as he held the weapon up to admire his handiwork. _ Any cleaner and it would blind the demon as Buffy sliced the head off_._  _

He couldn't see the point of this cleaning nonsense himself; use enough force and a rusty sword cuts through bone as well as a shiny one.  Buffy had some sort of a fetish about it, though; always wanting everything all sharp and sparkly, as though she didn't end up using a broken chair leg as a weapon half the time anyway.   

So Spike had dragged the weapons chest down into the basement last night to go through every piece.  Most of it was useless, of course.  Give him a good old-fashioned mace and an arm to swing it with and he could take out pretty much any demon that bothered him.  So could she.  But she liked her pretty toys and he was determined to show her that he understood that, and everything else about her, better than anyone.  

Now the last piece was done and clean enough to eat off of, though it would only remain that way for as long as it took Buffy to find something to kill, which usually wasn't long.  He could admire the aesthetics of the polished metal, but this need of hers to keep things tidy was beginning to irk even his understanding self.  It was almost like living with...

"Angelus," he snarled as the memories washed over him.

Spike threw the sword down on the dusty floor and spat on its polished surface.  _Angelus.  He was the one who'd infected her with the filthy habit of obsessive cleaning – it must've been him.  The old blighter had the same bugaboo, always with the snarky comments about men who didn't know how to handle their equipment properly.  Angelus was a collector too, just like her; he had to keep getting his fancy toys with the foreign names when Spike could have told him, did tell him in fact, that the rusted-out railroad spikes from which he got his name did the job just fine._

Well no more.  Spike wasn't going to put up with it a minute longer.  She'd had her fun, showing off to Angel and everyone how important she'd become taking charge of the useless crop of slayer wannabes.   But the time for games was over.  Spike wasn't going to casually stand by as she trained them all to be mirrors of the great and powerful Angel.  It was time to start doing things Spike's way, or not at all.

_'And for some of them,'_ he thought with a smile, _'we can go straight to the 'not at all'.'_

* * * * *

Angel prowled the confines of the Great Hall.  This house had once seemed so large to him, after his small apartment, and the dark alleys and rented rooms before it.  But now, after the freedom of his multi-level hotel, and all the tunnels branching off it that linked him to the outside world, this so-called mansion seemed like a prison.

A very small prison at that.

It didn't help that he had energy to burn today.  He'd already run through his kata once, and tried out the excuse for a training room that used to be the third-floor ballroom.  Nothing helped.  

"Angel-cakes, as much as I appreciate the handiness of a good moat, I think they're a little unsanitary in the living room."  Lorne pointed to Angel's feet, treading the same path around the outskirts of the room that they had for a half-hour now.  "Maybe you want to try pacing across the room a few times.  You know, go for a quilted look to the carpet."

Angel uttered a low growl of frustration and flung himself full-length on one of the sofas.  One arm extended over his eyes, blocking out the sight of the room so that he could imagine himself back in the hotel lobby.  The nice, large, safe hotel lobby.

"I'm sorry, Lorne; I just can't seem to stop moving today."

"Little trouble getting those baby browns shut last night?"  Lorne clucked sympathetically.  "I hear you.  Say, what S&M shop did you get that little torture rack you call a guest bed in anyway?"

Angel pulled his arm away from his face and rolled over on his side to look at his friend, suddenly noting the demon's usually green skin had a grayish cast to it this morning.  "I'm sorry, Lorne; I didn't know the bed was that bad.  We'll call a mattress store today and get it taken care of."

"Check out Mr. Moneybags.  I thought we were saving it all for..." Lorne stopped himself before he finished the sentence but too late to quell the ghosts.   "Well, no I guess you don't need to save it for Connor's college education anymore, do you?"

"Not hardly," Angel agreed with a sigh.  "But this place runs off of a different account anyway.  This is, well, old money.  I don't like to use it, but I need to keep the place going."

Wisely, Lorne didn't ask why.  He had a pretty good idea anyway, having spotted a sapphire blue scrunchie peeking out from between the sofa cushions he was reasonably sure wasn't left by neat-freak... and dark-haired... Angel.

"So what caused your bad night's sleep?" he asked instead.

"Nothing."  Angel smiled grimly at the sight of Lorne's eyebrows shooting up like twin helicopters; it wasn't easy to surprise a guy who knew your soul as well, if not better, than you did.  "I slept great.  That was the problem."

"Not following, Angel-face.  I usually find a good night spent in the arms of Morpheus to be...well, I don't actually like to think of it as Morpheus."   He tapped his chin thoughtfully as he searched for the correct expression.  "I'm more of a Morphia kind of guy... no, that's not right either."

Angel sat up and swung his feet to the floor, forcing himself to stay hunched up on the sofa rather than resume his restless pacing.

"I slept great," he reiterated.  "The way I haven't slept since, well, since I left here."  

Deliberately he closed his mind to the day he'd been human, that 24-hour space of time when all his dreams had come true and then irrevocably shattered.  Never again would he find the peace of that one night spent in his lover's arms, but last night had been as achingly close as he would ever be allowed to get.

"Suddenly seeing the nightlight here," Lorne murmured.  "No place like home, is there?"

"It's... it's her scent really."  Angel lifted his head to look bleakly at Lorne.  "The room is filled with it."  Suddenly he remembered Buffy hadn't wanted her secret revealed, and he tried to cover.  "She, well, she, umm, used the room... my room... I mean I guess she did..."

"Easy, big guy."  Lorne held up his hand to hold back the useless backpedaling.  "You're trying to apologize to the wrong ball of mush for being sentimental.  Every time I see Nestor's mom going to that big stable in the sky the Dead Sea starts coming out of my eyes."

Angel smiled, or at least he made the effort.  "Yeah, I remember the Christmas flood."

"Anyway, I get it; she came over here once in a while and borrowed your room and now it smells like her." Lorne tapped the side of his nose gently.  "At least it does to the nose that knows."

"I'd almost forgotten," Angel confessed in a husky voice.  "I made myself forget, because there wasn't any other way to get through the days.  But last night... it was all around me again, like it used to be those last few months I lived here."  His voice grew stronger as the memories took hold.  "She was over here all the time then, and sometimes she'd stay late and drift off for a little while on my bed and..."  

He stumbled to a halt, embarrassed by what he'd revealed.  Lorne remained silent, however, so Angel tried to regroup.  "It hit me as soon as I walked in the room, and then I laid down and I could smell her hair on the pillow... the shampoo and the... just the scent of her skin and... you're right," he shrugged helplessly, "I was home."

Angel's voice broke at the end and he abruptly turned his head away to keep Lorne from seeing anything that might be shining in the corners of his eyes.

"I slept like the dead," the vampire said a few very long and quiet minutes later.  He tried to laugh, but it didn't sound convincing even to him, the king of the self-deluded.  "And then I woke up this morning and it was now, not four years ago, and we're different people with different lives and I... I'm not even sure she likes me anymore, let alone...and maybe that's for the best."

"Angel-cakes..."

"No, I know it is," Angel added, not even hearing Lorne's abortive attempt to console him.  "But... I wish I'd tossed and turned a little last night.  Just a," he cleared his throat, "just a little."

Lorne shook his head.  "Boy was I on the wrong track.  Guess that's what happens when you live your life by song titles."

Angel turned back, his brow furrowing in confusion.  "What are you talking about?"

"You, you big romantic galoot.  I could see you loved the girl, but you seemed so comfy playing house with the fair Cordelia and I thought, well, hey, love the one you're with."  Lorne heaved a large sigh.  "Sorry if I led you down the wrong lyric there; I should have known better."  He looked to the heavens for understanding.  "Oh Mandy."

No, Angel thought ruefully, 'oh Cordelia.'  

To his final day, Angel would remember the moment he fell in love with Buffy Summers.  Sitting in that blacked-out car, hiding from people and sunshine and life itself, he'd watched a beautiful young girl accept a destiny for which she was totally unprepared and known his life would never be the same either.  With the same devastating clarity he could also remember when he realized he liked her as much as he loved her:  on the day he told her how to find the Master so she could rescue her friend, in the moment she'd taken the time to feel bad for him because he had no friends at all.

But Cordy... she'd snuck up on him.  The road from tolerance to like was a long one, and Angel didn't even know when he'd made the turn-off to something like love.  He just knew he'd been lonely, and she'd been lonely, and being together pushed the shadows back for a little while.

But in the end, it just wasn't enough.  Having known sunlight, he could never accept the absence of shadows as a substitute.  He only wished it hadn't taken Connor's involvement with Cordelia to make him step back and take a good look at himself and his illusions.

"It wasn't your fault; I was definitely old enough to know better."  Angel stood up.  "Besides, there's nothing you could have done for me and Buffy even if you'd known.  I was never the right guy for her, even though I kidded myself for a while that someday I could be."

"Someday...like when you were human again?" Lorne asked shrewdly.

Angel glanced quickly at him, thinking for an instant he was referring to the past.  Then the vampire's face cleared.  "You mean when...if...I shansu.  Yeah, that would have helped."

"What about your ironclad curse; doesn't that help at all?  I was kind of hoping it would, and so was that pretty little witch who made such a point of throwing the sanctuary spell into the soup."

Angel shook his head.  "It doesn't change who I am."

"Everything changes who we are, kiddo.  The day we stop being works-in-progress is the day they nail the coffin shut."  The demon winced.  "Oops, sorry.  Didn't mean to flip up the lid on the past."

Angel waved away the comment.  "Look, you don't have to keep me company anymore.  The others should be back soon, at least some of them should.  I know you're dying to check out the demon life around here."  He pointed at the door.  "Go.  Enjoy."

"I happen to be waiting for you to fork over the breakfast meats, thank you very much."

Angel smiled and shook his head.  "No, you're not.  You love eating out more than anyone I've ever met... and I've met a _lot _of people."  He pointed at the door, gesturing towards the left.  "Three blocks from here, take a left and then hang a right at the WWII memorial.  There's a diner on the corner that'll blow your taste buds straight back to Pylea."

"Ugh."  Lorne wrinkled his nose in mock disgust.  "If it tastes anything like Mother used to make... no thanks.  I can eat used dirt anywhere."

Angel experienced a momentary qualm at the idea of setting a green-skinned red-eyed demon loose in suburban Sunnydale, but he quickly suppressed it.  More than likely, people would rationalize away what they saw, and if they didn't... it was about time.

"Lorne, go."  Angel's tone abruptly softened.  "Please."

"I just hate to leave you all by your lonesome, Angel-face."  Lorne stood up, but he made no move towards the door.  "You seem kind of down even for you."

"I suppose if I made some comment here about how we're all always alone or that I always will be, you'd never leave."  Angel gently took Lorne by the arm and tugged him towards the front door.  "I'm a big boy, Lorne, and I will be fine on my own until the others get back.  I'll train some more," he added.  "Punching something always makes me feel better."

Lorne gave in; when Angel got that certain set to his jaw there was no reasoning with him.  Also, Lorne had made it a long-standing policy never to get between a man and his punching bag, lest he be mistaken for the latter.  

"Then on that rather dysfunctional note, I'm a seriously Technicolor dream that once was."

* * * * *

Spike was not a slow-moving vampire by nature; he preferred to take his undead existence at a brisk pace whenever possible.  On a normal day, he bounded up the cellar steps two at a time, ready to set the world on fire, at least metaphorically.  Of course when he got within a few steps of the door, where people could see and hear him, he had to slow his pace as befitted a world-weary lovesick vampire with a soul.  There were certain preconceptions he was forced to cater to, especially in Buffy's case, and he wasn't about to give her any reason to doubt him. 

Not that she was the one with the right to be suspicious; in fact it was her new attitude that slowed him down to a near crawl this morning.   Angel's sudden return had disrupted the world Spike had come to take for granted, and not in a good way.  Buffy was suddenly distant, and even though she had made some attempt to defend him against his attackers Spike no longer felt certain that he was her focal point.

It was not a feeling he enjoyed, and he certainly didn't intend to get used to it.  She was his focus and he damn well better be hers – fair was fair.

He pushed open the cellar door and slid sideways to avoid the beam of sunlight shining on the wall to the side of it.  Indirect light didn't burn like the real thing..._but it still gave a fellow the shivers, especially first thing in the day._  Fortunately the past few months had taught him all the hot spots in the house, places where a considerate person would remember to pull a drape to accommodate the vampire living in the basement but these so-called human beings always left exposed.

The kitchen appeared marvelously free of the human freeloaders, and the only one in the living room was that Cordelia girl and her brat-to-be.  She looked to be sleeping, and snoring at that, but at least she was the only one to creep past on his way to the stairs.

Up he went, quickly and quietly, and down the hallway past the rooms Buffy's precious SITs camped out in.  They didn't hear him, for all their supposed super-powers-in-training; they were too busy with their girly-girl chatter to hear even a vampire elephant charging through.  He almost laughed out loud over their stupidity.

And then he heard his name being mentioned.

* * * * *

"No, I don't think Angel's anything like Spike," Rona insisted, "at least not the way you mean, Molly.  But that doesn't matter anyway."  She looked around the bedroom at the assembled SITs, who were sitting or sprawling anywhere there was a spare square-foot of space.  "He's not the important one in that crowd – Faith is."

"No, Faith is the scary one."  Amanda shuddered.  "Didn't you hear what Dawn said she did to Buffy?  She stole her body!"

Rona shook her head in disbelief.  "So, what, you think she's back looking for another replacement?  She's already a Slayer, Mandy; she's not going to want one of our bodies unless we're called, and the only way we get called is if she..." she drew her finger sideways across her throat.

Amanda drew her knees up to her chest and wound her arms tightly around them.  "That's supposed to make me feel better?"  

"She's a power."  Rona got to her feet, the better for asserting authority over her less-determined sister slayers.  "And whether you're willing to admit it or not, she's got more on the ball than our so-called leader.  I mean Faith hangs with vampires too," she admitted with grudging honesty, "but at least hers seems to treat her right.  After all, who's buying who food and clothes?"

"What is it with slayers and vampires anyway?  Is this what we have to look forward to?"  Kennedy sat up straighter on her cot and rubbed her arms briskly.  "Because I'm really not into cold skin."

"I'd make an exception for that one," Molly admitted with a grin.  "And bonus:  no hair-trigger trigger."

"The rest of them respect him too," Kennedy mused, "even the Watcher.  Now that says something."

"Something strange," Amanda murmured.  She stared out the window at the beautiful sunny day beyond it, but her attention was focused on the previous night's revelations.  "Why would a Watcher work for a vampire?"

"Why would a man who looked that good want to become a Watcher in the first place?" Molly asked.  "He could've gotten a real job."

"Can we quit with the stroll down Beefcake Lane?  Sheesh!"  Rona was rapidly losing patience with her fellow SITs; they were all way to easily swayed by a handsome face, even Kennedy.  "Faith is the key.  She's the one who can get us through this alive.  Well, okay, so her and the others from LA."  She looked around the room, trying to judge the support she was garnering.  "They just knocked down one apocalypse; I say we go with the ones with the track record."

Amanda dragged her eyes away from the outside world.  

"Buffy has a track record," she protested, more out of form than conviction.  It seemed like someone should be sticking up for Buffy, even if everything Rona had said made an unhappy amount of sense.

"Yeah, we heard all about it," Rona agreed darkly.  "The last time they almost shut down the world Xander was the one who pulled the fat out of the fire, and the time before that Buffy had to throw herself off a water tower to get the job done.  Does either one of those sound like a plan we can count on working twice?"

"She does depend on someone reviving her an awful lot," Molly admitted.  "I mean, two times; isn't that pushing things just a bit?  It's really nice that they keep doing it... but it seems a lot to expect, especially of civilians."

"You may be right."  Kennedy hated selling out Willow's best friend, but facts were facts.  "I mean Buffy's nice and all, I guess, but she's like, not really there.  She kind of reminds me of my mom, you know, somewhere between the Xanax and the vodka stingers."

"Okay, after we save the world," Rona declared, "party at Kennedy's house."

"Let's just focus on the 'save the world' part first," Kennedy suggested.

"Hey, we team with the LA branch, we might just get it done."

* * * * *

Spike closed Buffy's bedroom door gently, careful not to make any revealing noises.  He couldn't stop them if the SITs knew he knew their plan, and he was determined to stop them.  He, and only he, could stop them.

"Bloody ungrateful cows," he hissed, stalking back and forth at the foot of the bed.  "I'll show them how to 'get it done,' all right.  And I think we'll start with that Rona chit."  

A dreamy smile lit Spike's face as he pictured the best way to make Rona feel his Slayer's pain.  They all deserved to feel Buffy's pain, which was now his pain.  The First might have the right idea after all; the fewer SITs there were, the less his Buffy would have to worry about.  Together they could beat anything; they didn't need all of these whiny ungrateful brats taking up space and time and his Slayer's attention.  She had better things to pay attention to.

She had him.

Spike's pale fingers toyed with the handle on the top drawer of the dresser as he made his plans.  He knew well what silken things lay inside; they had been his original purpose for coming up here.  But now he had a new purpose, sprung, as all his goals were, from the overwhelming passion that ruled his life.

"So Rona first.  And then... well, we'll just see how the little girls behave."

* * * * *

Buffy was trying hard to concentrate on the pile of student folders on her desk, scheduling follow-up appointments, making notes on questions to ask teachers, checking for any notations on parental response.  But this necessary task, one of the few that gave her a weird sort of buzz to be a grown-up, couldn't hold her attention today.  

It was bad enough that the First Evil was prowling around picking off slayers, the end of the world was nearing nigh again and she had several students who might not make it through finals; that should have been enough trouble for any Vampire Slayer/High School guidance counselor.  But no, she had to have Faith, Wesley, Cordelia, Angel's son (!) and Angel himself underfoot too.  

"Miss Summers."

She looked up to see Robin Wood standing stiffly in the doorway.  

"Yes, Principal Wood," she replied in kind, keeping her regretful sigh to herself.

Ever since he and Giles had kidnapped Spike, and Spike had turned the tables on them, Robin had been very formal and distant with Buffy.  She hated it.  She missed the camaraderie there used to be between them, the bond of belonging to a very small and exclusive club who knew hiding under the bed only left you more vulnerable to monsters that slithered.  She'd tried to make him feel more at ease, but he refused to meet her halfway, bearing some sort of grudge because she told him Spike's part in the fight with the First was more crucial than his own.  

Like she had time for fragile egos these days.  Well, other than a certain one.

"There are some police officers here to speak with you."  Robin stepped into the office, ushering two uniformed officers in with a wave of his hand.

Buffy was on her feet in an instant, a sick feeling of dread in her stomach.  Suddenly she felt a bond with Joyce she had never expected.

"What's up?  Is this about my sister?  Is she okay?"  She pounded one fist on her desk.  "I knew I shouldn't have let her go to that sleepover!  She said everything would be fine, but I know better than that.  Or I should have."

"Buffy, calm down."

Robin dropped his guard almost instantly when he saw where Buffy's thoughts had turned.  Forgotten, at least for the moment, was the icy chill of knowing the vampire who killed his mother mattered more than he these days; all that was left was concern for a friend and fellow warrior.

"They're not here about Dawn," he said.  "She's fine.  I saw her come into the office looking for you before you got here this morning."

Buffy flushed; she'd truly meant to be on time, but Fate, in the form of 30-odd, and odd, houseguests at her breakfast table, had conspired against her.

"I was, umm, running a little late today," she told Robin, shutting out the cops' presence for just a moment.  "I had some company.  Some more of the usual company," she emphasized, only to see Robin's eyes open wide with comprehension.

Not so wide, however, as the two police officers' eyes.

"Would one of those guests happen to be a Faith MacGyver?" one of the officers, consulting a small notebook.  "Approximately 20 years old, dark hair, slender build, about 5'4"?"

"Faith who?" Buffy asked faintly, avoiding Robin's eyes.  

"MacGyver," the officer repeated.

Buffy's mind was going in circles.  She didn't want to lie to the police; it wouldn't be good for her job or set her up well with Social Services when it came to Dawn's guardianship.  On the other hand, she had little use for an escaped murderess, especially one who was staying so close to her family and friends.  On the other hand, Faith was a Slayer, and as such there would always be a certain bond between them.  On the other hand, Faith had once been only too willing to sacrifice that bond, and Buffy, in the name of keeping her own freedom.  On the other hand...

With an inward grumble, Buffy realized she was out of hands, unless she suddenly morphed into an Isopan demon.  When in doubt, she could only follow her mother's advice and tell the truth.

"I don't know of any Faith MacGyver."  

She had, after all, never thought to ask Faith her last name.

"You're sure?" the second officer asked doubtfully.  

Buffy thought back to the time of the Deputy Mayor's death.  She and Faith had both been questioned, but while she was over 18 at the time, Faith was still a juvenile; her records should be sealed.  Theoretically.

"I'm sure," she said decisively.  "I'd remember the name.  I mean I do; I used to watch the show every week with my dad when I was little.  It was kind of our special tradition.  Monday nights he'd actually leave work on time and we'd make popcorn and...and you probably don't want to know that," she stammered when she saw the first cop's eyes begin to glaze over.  "But that's why I'm sure I'd remember anyone with that last name."

"What did she do?" Robin asked warily.  He didn't believe Buffy for a second; he had come to recognize a certain tone that came to her voice when she was lying.  It was possible, though, that her lies had nothing to do with protecting Spike.

Not likely, but just barely possible.

"She escaped from a maximum security prison upstate about a week ago.  She was in for 25 to life.  Murder," the first officer added emphatically.

"And you think she's looking for me?  Why?"

"We were able to trace some visitors she'd had back to an unlicensed detective agency in Los Angeles called Angel Investigations.  Her most frequent visitor was the owner of the agency, a guy named," the officer consulted her notebook and frowned, "well, it just says he goes by the name 'Angel,' no last name given."  She sighed – _rookies.  "Anyway, he owns some property here in Sunnydale, including a residence on Crawford Street that is held jointly in his name and yours, Miss Summers."_

Buffy could feel the warm glow of a blush creeping across her face.  Angel had never mentioned putting her name on the deed to the mansion, though she vaguely remembered him having her sign some papers once.  But she'd had a history mid-term coming up at the time, so she would have signed anything to get him to explain what the heck Martin Luther tacking a note to the church door had to do with the development of socialism.

"Angel is, umm, an old friend," she murmured.  "A very good old friend, if you know what I mean."

"He's also missing," the second officer said flatly.  "Along with the guy who helped break Ms. MacGyver out of prison, a Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, and actually the rest of the Angel Investigations staff.  The place was deserted when the LAPD got there."

"I'm sorry."  Buffy shrugged and turned up her palms.  "I wish I could help you."

"If you hear from her, or from that Angel guy," the second officer laid a business card on her desk, "please let us know."

Buffy picked up the card, running the tip of her forefinger back and forth along the top edge.  "I'll pick up the phone right after they pick me up off the floor," she promised.  "Where I would have fallen in surprise from hearing from them," she added uneasily, once she saw they hadn't followed her train of thought.

The officers exchanged a glance she was unable to read, and then they were gone, leaving behind a very angry Robin.  Buffy could read in his eyes that he was about ready to blow; she tried to create a quick diversion, just to defuse some of the simmering fury.

"MacGyver; who'd have guessed it?  Of course now I know why she never said anything; Xander wouldn't have ever let her hear the end of it.  Every time we needed to blow something up or..."

Robin would have none of her busy chatter.  "Okay, just who the hell is this Faith MacGyver," he hissed, "and why are you hiding her from the police?"

Buffy slipped around from behind her desk to close her office door.  She leaned back against it and eyed Robin uneasily.

"She's a slayer," she explained.  No point in hiding nitty or gritty; Robin knew the worst.  Or at least he knew as much of the worst as she let anyone know.  "She's the other active slayer; you remember I told you there were two of us?"  At his silent nod, she continued.  

"She was in prison for murder, but she broke out because there was some apocalyptic-ish trouble in LA.  Now that's fixed, but she came with Ang... with the people from Angel Investigations to help out with our own little slice o' hell.  But she'll be leaving soon," she added quickly, seeing the protest in his eyes before it reached his lips.  "Today even."

"You're sure?"

She winced.  "Pretty sure.  I mean I've asked her... them... all of them... to go; it's just a matter of time before they realize I really mean it."

"Which means they're here for the duration."  Robin shot her a hard look as he added, "Unless they make the mistake of attacking Spike, of course."

She pounded her fist on the door behind her.  "I wish you could just get over that!"

"Excuse me?"  Robin couldn't believe his ears.

"Not... not what he did to your mom," she said quickly.  Two quick steps took her to Robin's side, but he backed up an equal distance to get away from her.  "But you have to accept that I have my reasons for needing him on our side; you have to trust me on this.  If you can't... then you have to walk away."  Her voice hardened; she was all Slayer now.  "Because I'm not letting the world go to hell just because of you.  Nobody gets to chuck it out the portal just for personal feelings, not even me."

"Like you're not right now!"

All the emotion was wiped clean from her face.  "You have no idea what I've sacrificed to keep this world spinning clockwise, and I am never going to explain it to you.  You haven't earned it."  With measured steps she circled round behind her desk and pulled out the lower drawer, retrieving her purse from its depths.  "I'll be gone for about an hour," she said steadily.  

"You're really going to hide an escaped murderess?"  His voice rang with disbelief.  "You can't even use the excuse that she has a demon inside of her."

"She has demons inside of her you'll never understand, though maybe your mom would've known a few by name.  But as it happens, I'm going to see Angel; he's the one who's hiding her.  I need to warn him, and Wesley."  She sighed.  "And yes, even Faith, because she could bring down the whole house of cards if she gets the police after us."

"Who is this Angel character?  Just an old boyfriend, or something more?"

Her hand was on the doorknob, but she turned to face him as she answered him; she needed to make sure he understood this, if nothing else.

"He's someone who's off-limits to you, now and forever.  We're not going to talk about him, you're not going to meet him and you're not going to ask anyone else about him.  As far as you're concerned, he doesn't exist."

"What, another vampire lover?" he asked, half-kidding.  His eyes widened when he saw he had scored a direct hit.  "Oh my God," he breathed.  "What is wrong..."

She crossed the room in an instant, her hand biting into his arm, choking his words off into a gasp of pain.  She didn't release him, not even when he tried to pull his arm away.  Instead she held on for dear life, very dear life.

"If you thought you were in trouble for messing with Spike, you can't even begin to comprehend the damage you're asking for if you so much as mention Angel's name.  I mean it, Robin."  She dropped his arm but held fast to his shocked dark eyes.  "Touch the apple and the snake strikes you dead where you stand."

"So you'd let him kill me too, for the glory of the Cause."

A tiny smile teased at the corners of her mouth, growing in uneasy contrast to the darkness in her eyes.  "I'm sure Angel's heard all about you by now, so even if you attacked him first he'd never kill you, not even to save himself."  The smile blossomed into a frightening expanse of bared teeth.  "But he wouldn't have to.  What I'd leave of you wouldn't be big enough to stick between his teeth."

* * * * *

Angel was giving the punching bag everything he had to offer.  Right, left, right, left; over and over he swung out and connected, but he couldn't make the bag take his pain away.  Frustration, fear, anger...all boiled within him and the only companion with whom he could share everything was an inanimate, and rather battered, object.

He didn't know how to deal with Cordelia's pregnancy, or how crushed Connor was going to be when he realized this child was probably not a child at all.  He didn't know how to handle a teenage son who usually seemed to hate or resent him to the point of homicide.  He could see Gunn and Fred were having problems and he wanted to be there for them, but with not even one successful romantic relationship in almost 250 years to his credit, he was in no position to offer more than a shoulder to cry on.  Faith was AWOL from prison on his behalf and he had no idea how to get her back in again without bringing the law down on all of them.  

And then there was Buffy.  Until and unless he could get her to open up and let him back into her life at least a little, she was going to require a whole new set of workout equipment.

He had just decided it was time to invest in a new set of dumbbells, in honor of his astounding incapacity to solve any of his problems whatsoever, when she slipped into the room.

"Buffy."  He grabbed the bag to stop it swinging.  "What are you doing here?"

She shrugged and started to cross the room.  "I came to see you."  Her eyes swept up and down his body, lingering on his bare chest.  "I wasn't expecting to see quite so much, though.  Guess my timing is..."

"Stop," he commanded, holding up one reddened hand.

She did stop walking, though not talking.  "Stop what?  Noticing that you're standing in front of me half-naked, or stop appreciating the view?"

"Stop pretending to be her."

She looked startled.  "I'm Buffy, the same as I always was.  Well, maybe not quite the same, but..."

He shook his head and smiled, thought the bleak look in his eyes spoke more of pain than amusement.  

"Sorry, no dice.  I spent last night surrounded by Buffy's scent, just from her having been here within the past day.  Now you're standing 5 feet away from me and I don't smell a thing."

"I showered."   Her slim shoulders moved upwards in a quick dismissive shrug.  "I do that from time to time."

"Save it."  He put away every half-formed fantasy and hope that had blossomed when he saw her face in the doorway, and moved on to the business at hand.  "Why are you here?  What evil party game did Buffy keep you from the last time you blew into town?"

The First abruptly switched tactics.  If she couldn't beat him by joining him, she would just have to beat him until he could no longer be joined at all.  Angel had to be removed from the equation; there was no other way.  Luckily, Buffy was making it all too easy.

"It wasn't Buffy.  She couldn't stop anything by herself."

"I wouldn't say that."  There was a grim, but unmistakable, pride in his voice.  "I can actually make you a list, if you want; my name's right at the top."

"It took both of you to stop me before," she corrected him.  A slow smile crept across her face.  "Of course I don't have to worry about that now."

He raised one hand and waved it at her.  "I'm here, undead and in person.  Well, sort of person."

"But not with Buffy.  Together you are strong; apart," she turned her palms up and pouted, "you're pathetic."

"That's not how the prophecy goes," Angel reminded her.

He leaned over and snatched up the T-shirt he'd abandoned on a chair at the beginning of his workout, but slipping it on did nothing to banish his uncomfortable feeling of vulnerability.

"Oh please.  Those Oracles could talk till they were blue in the face... in fact they did."  She let out a very un-Buffy like giggle.  "But it doesn't change the truth.  Separately, you both add up to a whole lot of nothing."

"I can fix that."

The First began to stroll around the room, running her fingers along the exercise equipment as she moved from piece to piece.  "No, you can't.  She won't let you.  She doesn't want you anymore."

"He'll never believe that," Connor scoffed from the open door.  "He thinks he's irresistible to women."

"Connor."  Angel tore his wary gaze from the First to stare at his son.  "You can see her?"

"Why shouldn't I be able to see her?"  Connor took a few steps into the room and then paused to sniff the air.  "What I don't get is why I can't I smell her."

The First threw up her hands.  "And here I thought the resemblance was in the chin."

Connor eyed Faux Buffy curiously.  The physical presence, the voice, the body movements...all were impeccable duplications.  Yet he could see why his father had not been fooled, and it went far beyond simple smell.  

"Is she that First Evil they've been talking about?" he asked.  "She doesn't look very threatening."

The Evil in question sauntered over to Connor and played at patting him on the cheek with her insubstantial hand.  Suddenly she was feeling much better.

"Just wait, little one.  I'm the demon of a thousand faces; I'm sure one of them will be your size.  Perhaps this one?"

With that she morphed into Holtz, still holding a ghostly hand to Connor's face.  The boy instinctively reached up to strike her... now his... hand away, but the First was already gone.

* * * * *

Buffy entered the mansion cautiously.  She almost wanted to knock before she came in, but she never had in all the time Angel was living there; certainly she hadn't bothered in the past 4 years when she'd been the only semi-resident.  Besides, it was actually half her house.

The Great Hall was silent, though she did notice signs of occupancy.  There was a stack of unfamiliar books on the end table, a towel dangled over the back of a wooden chair, a box of granola bars lay open on the mantel and the blue scrunchie she'd spent fifteen minutes searching for this morning was jammed between two sofa cushions.

A dull thud from the upstairs gave her a clue where she might finds some signs of life.  As she headed for the stairs, she tried to hold down the strange feeling of comfort the sound gave her.  It had been a long time, too long, since she had shared this space with anyone.

* * * * *

"So you really could see her?" Angel asked again.  "I don't get that."

"That's because you missed breakfast."  

Angel sighed and ran a hand over his sweaty hair.  "Now there's two things I don't understand."

"We went over this at breakfast," Connor explained with thinly disguised impatience.  "She believed you about the First Evil not always being incorporeal; why can't you believe her that it can be seen by more than one person?"

"Because..." Angel paused, and then gave in.  "No reason.  You're right."

"That's a switch," Connor said quietly, "you admitting I'm right."

"Actually I'd say it's the other way around."  Angel began methodically punching the bag again, forcing himself to focus on it rather than his surly son.

Connor waited silently, debating the value of just walking away.  It wasn't that he really wanted to talk with his father; far from it, he assured himself.  But there were pieces missing, pieces he never even knew existed, and he would never understand the man his father had become without trying to find those pieces.  And for whatever reason, it now seemed to matter that he understood the man who brought him into this world and then let someone else take him out of it.

"What is she to you?"

"Who?" Angel asked, as though he didn't know.

"Buffy.  You said she sent you to hell, and yet you come running when you hear she's in danger."

"You tried to kill me and I come running if... when... you're in danger," his father pointed out.

Connor turned to walk away.  "Fine.  Don't tell me."

"Connor, wait!" Angel called out.  

He grabbed the swinging bag and held on with both hands, pressing his forehead against the warm leather as he searched for the strength to get through this conversation.

Connor turned around to face his father again, waiting impatiently for some tiny window into Angel's world.

"You want to know what she is to me," Angel said slowly, "but the truth is I can't tell you.  I know what she was to me; she was... everything."  His hands fell away from the punching bag, dangling helplessly by his side.  "That was the problem.  She was all I had, all I wanted.  But that wasn't fair to her."

"I don't understand."

Angel raised his head to look Connor in the eye.  "You can't make one person your whole universe.  It's not fair to make them responsible for your happiness or your sense of purpose."

"I thought that's what love was."  For once there was no sneer in Connor's tone, no superiority or scorn, only bewilderment.

"You need to find it in yourself first, so that you can share it with others," Angel explained wearily.  "Anything less is just obsession; Buffy taught me that.  But it took moving to LA for me to really understand."

"So now you don't care for her?"

"I didn't say that," Angel said swiftly.  "But there's more to my life now than just Buffy, and it's been too long since we were together for me to say what there is between us anymore."

In his heart Angel knew it was a lie.  He knew exactly how he felt, how he would always feel.  But Buffy's feelings, once clearer to him than his own, were now shrouded in layers of evasion and misdirection.

"You're lying," Connor said flatly.  "I can tell as easily on you as you can tell on me.  If you're going to lie I might as well go."

Angel stalled for time.  "Why are you here anyway?  Did the others come back too?"

"I came alone.  Cordy wanted a book on Heglor demons that she left here."

"Oh."  Angel absorbed this, trying to pretend it mattered more than figuring out what to tell his son about a relationship actually more complex than theirs.

"I thought you loved Cordy," Connor blurted out.

His father relaxed slightly.  This, at least, was once again a simple answer.  

"I do."  

"But you still love Buffy?"  Too late he remembered to whom he was speaking.  "As much as you're capable of loving anyone, that is."

"There are all kinds of love, Connor."  It was a lesson Angel was still trying to come to grips with himself, but hopefully his son would have better luck.  "Cordelia has been my friend, my very good friend, for the past few years, and I will always care for her.  But what I feel for her has nothing to do with what I feel... felt..." he drew a deep breath and plunged in head first, "feel for Buffy."

Connor regarded him uneasily.  He'd asked the questions... more importantly, he'd asked for honest answers.  But suddenly Angel was appearing just a little too human for the comfort of his only son.

"I should go..." he began, taking a hesitant step backwards.

"The thing is, I... I don't know how Buffy feels," Angel broke in.  "I used to, but now... everything seems different.  Except I can't believe she's changed that much when I... I just don't know."

A scent drifted lazily through Connor's nostrils, sparking a nervous desire to laugh.  His all-powerful father, or at least all-powerful in Angel's own mind, was so absorbed in thoughts of this lost yet oh-so close love that he had failed to recognize the obvious.

"Why don't you ask her?  She's right down the hall."

Angel looked up from his folded hands in alarm.  "She's..." he started to ask, and then he realized he didn't need to.  He could not only smell her, he could feel her with every tingling nerve ending in his body.  She was very near... and had probably heard a substantial portion of what he'd just said to Connor.

Hers was not the only life that sucked, he reflected ruefully.

* * * * *

To Be Continued 


	4. Chapter 4

Dead End 

**Part 4**

By Gem 

Buffy hovered uneasily in the doorway of the old ballroom, trying to decide how much of the conversation she'd just overheard she should admit to overhearing.  She hadn't intended to eavesdrop, or at least she hadn't consciously planned it.  _I'm just naturally stealthy, that's all_, she told herself.  It wasn't her fault that neither Angel nor Connor had heard her approaching, or that they hadn't finished gossiping about her before she got there.  She had no reason to feel awkward whatsoever. 

Not that her essential rightness helped her feel any less awkward, especially when Connor came over and sniffed her.

"She's real," he announced, as though the question had been in doubt before she arrived.

"I know," said Angel quietly.

She felt a warm familiar buzz speed through her veins under the heat of her former lover's gaze, but she fought against it.  Her course was already laid out and she was running out of time to finish it; she could feel that with every slayer's instinct she possessed.  There was no way she could let Angel get to her; she had to stay strong.

"What's the deal with Scrappy Doo?" she asked in as casual a voice as she could muster.  

She kept her eyes firmly trained on Angel's pale face as she awaited his answer, not allowing them to stray as much as a millimeter below his chin.  Anything lower, say to where his well-muscled arms slipped out from beneath the confines of his short-sleeved T-shirt, and she was headed for real trouble.  He had his nerve exercising at a time like this.

"I'm going to overlook that insult... and I do realize it was an insult, by the way."  Angel saw the surprise in her eyes and added, "Gunn made me watch the show."

She blushed and began to stammer; she wasn't used to dealing with her friends having kids at all, let alone ones old enough to get their feelings hurt.  It was a whole new world.

"I, umm, was just trying to make him, you know, feel a part of the gang." 

"Sure."  Angel didn't sound convinced.  "Anyway, we had a visit from the First, all dressed up as Chosen One Number One."

"It has no smell," Connor added.  

_And this was a bad thing because...? _Obviously she was missing a page here.

"Smell?"  

"You do," he reassured her.

She smiled weakly at him.  "Thanks."

"You must have noticed it had no scent."  Connor leaned in again, staring at her with unnervingly intense eyes.  They were his father's eyes in that respect, she decided, even if they were blue.  "How else would you have tried to track it?"

"Slayers don't have quite the same sense of smell we have, Connor, even though we do share a lot of other strengths."  Angel turned his head sharply back to Buffy.  "But Spike should've noticed."

Buffy was caught flat-footed.  It was true; in all the times he had encountered the First Evil, Spike should have noticed something so elemental, and upon noticing he should have told her.  Since neither one was the case, she was forced to scramble for excuses.

"Well he, umm, was a little... okay, a lot unstable when he first came back and the First, it, well you remember how it haunted you, Angel?  It did the same thing to Spike and so I'm sure smelling it was the furthest thing from what was left of his mind."

She was proud of her explanation until Connor opened his mouth again.

_The little fink._

"So you're not just letting a vampire live in your house with your family; you're letting a crazy vampire live in your house?"  He smirked at his father.  "Way to pick 'em, Dad."

"Hey, he's not crazy now," she snapped.  "He hasn't been for a while."  

Too late she realized the opening she was giving Angel, an opening he seized with no small satisfaction.

"Then why hasn't he noticed anything?  Or do you think he did notice and he just hasn't felt like talking about it?"

"I think..." she mentally flailed for an appropriate diversion, and miraculously one came to her almost at once.  "I think I'm wondering why Connor has his daddy's bionic nose.  I wouldn't think that sort of thing was hereditary, though I suppose once you get past the idea that vampires can have kids..."

"He gets it from both sides," Angel said quietly.  He wasn't going to lie to her, but he would have given almost anything not to have to tell her the truth.  "His sense of smell, his coordination, his strength... all of it."

His interruption abruptly stemmed the torrent of words hovering on her lips.  'Getting it from both sides' meant one thing, and that in turn meant one woman, at least for Angel.

"Darla," she said flatly.  "Darla's his mother."

"Was," Angel agreed.  "She died when he was born."  He paused for one tiny, infinite moment and then gave his former lover her due.  "She died so he could be born."

"I knew it!"  Buffy slapped her hand against her thigh.  "That night in the cemetery you told me she just left, but I knew she wouldn't give up so easy; I knew she wouldn't be satisfied until she tried to happy the soul out of you.  But she couldn't do it, could she?"  Her triumphant smile faded as she realized what Darla _had done, what Darla shared with Angel that Buffy would never be able to.  "I guess it doesn't take a happy to make a baby, though."_

"I'm leaving," Connor said abruptly.

"Connor," Angel protested, "you don't have to..."

But he was pleading with the air; Connor was gone before Angel had even finished saying his name.  Angel's hand, automatically extended to his only child, fell stolidly to his side as he tried to force a smile.

"Some days it seems like everything I say to him is exactly the wrong thing."  He met Buffy's eyes reluctantly, ashamed to admit the depths of his failure with his son.  "Other days it's just my existence that pisses him off."

She didn't want to hurt for him; it wasn't her fault that he had a bad relationship with his son... _Darla's son!..._ and it was certainly not her responsibility to fix it.  But the pain he carried had always spoken to the hidden corners of her own soul, and even knowing he had shared something with his ex-girlfriend that he would never share with her did not diminish that unspoken connection.

"If I remember, it's called being a teenager."  She shrugged, her arms rigid with the effort not to reach out to him.  "I used to be one a long, long, _long_ time ago."

He didn't laugh, or even smile, at her joke.  Instead he stared deep into her eyes before he softly said, "Seems like forever, doesn't it?"

She answered before she could stop herself.  "Not always."

"Why did you come here, Buffy?"  He took a step towards her.

Seeing him, talking to him, just being with him left her stranded between the past she never asked for and the future she would never get.  It took a moment for his question to reach her through the fog, and in that time he took another step closer.  Too close for comfort or for safety, she decided, and stepped sideways.  Immediately he stopped advancing, awaiting her next move.

"Faith," she said curtly.  

She stopped him cold with that one word, as only she knew how.

"I'm sorry you two can't get along, but she's here to help, Buffy, just like the rest of us."

Buffy could see he was all business now; perhaps he sensed the tiny crack in her defenses had once again scabbed over.  Well two could play the professional game.

"That's not it," she responded calmly, resisting the urge to stamp her foot in frustration at his annoyingly reasonable tone.  "The police came to the high school looking for her."

"The police?  Wait, why were you at the high school?"  He scratched his head.  "Which high school anyway?  We blew up your old one."

"File felony charges where charges are due – I blew up the old one."  Her smirk dissolved into a sigh a moment later.  "And then they built a new one, right over hellmouth central.  Didn't Willow tell you?  I work there now, as a counselor."

"Really?"  She could see the genuine pleasure in his eyes.  "That's great."  Then reality struck.  "Or actually... no, that's dangerous.  Way, way dangerous."

"Tell me about it," she said dryly, thinking of all the near catastrophes she'd already averted, as well as the ones she hadn't.  "Anyway, the cops were looking for her.  And you.  And Wesley.  They're going to find her," she warned him, "and then all hell is going to break loose, just as I'm trying to prevent a real hell from breaking loose and I so do not need police getting in my way when I..."

"They won't," he broke in.  

"Oh, you can guarantee that?" she scoffed.  "Angel, you couldn't even keep yourself from getting arrested when you knew someone on the police force.  How do you plan on protecting Faith here?"  Memories loomed large in her head, of a pushy female cop who worked way too hard at being mad at Angel to be believed.  "Are you going to get cozy with every female cop in the station or just the ones with keys to the cells?"

He wasn't sure where her last comment sprang from, but he didn't waste time following it up.  She wanted answers and he was the man with a plan.

"Fred is taking Faith to get her hair dyed and cut; it's part of the little shopping spree I sent them on."  

Buffy had a vision of Faith's face when Fred broke the news, she only wished could see it for real.  She could really use a laugh today.

"And did it occur to you that she might get spotted at the mall?" She shook her head at his naiveté.   "I mean a new 'do is the first thing cops would look for and there's only a few salons to choose from."  

"The place I sent them to isn't in a mall, and they're very discreet."

_He's such a...man_, she thought incredulously.  "A discreet hairstylist?  Are you kidding?"

"When your reflection doesn't show up in the mirror and the woman cutting your hair doesn't mention it, I'd call that discreet."   Apparently no further proof was required in his book.  "So what do you think Faith would look like as a blonde?"

"Like she was pretending to be me again," Buffy snapped.  

_How dare he?_  _And like that woman was bothering with his reflection when she had the real thing at her fingertips.  Please._

Angel raised his hands in surrender, with a little twinkle in his eyes that took her by surprise.  

"That's what I thought too, which is why she's going red.  Possibly with purple highlights.  Or maybe black.  We'll see what she's in the mood for."

"Red and purple?  Won't that stand out a little bit?  As in a lot?"

He shrugged; her point was not a new idea to him, but also not a concern.  "Faith is a slayer; she stands out no matter what.  This way, if we're obvious about it, she'll actually end up being less noticeable."

"That's cra... what do you mean she stands out because she's a slayer?"  Buffy planted one small hand on each hip as she glared at him.  "Does that mean all the times you told me how much I stood out from the crowd you were just talking about the slayer thing?"

Angel shook his head, the smile vanishing from his pale face as quickly as it had appeared.  "You always stood out, even when your powers were buried under those drugs the Council gave you.  It's just who you are."

She forced a deep breath into her lungs, hoping to slow her heartbeat and cool her flushed cheeks.  When he looked at her like that, with so many unspoken but undeniably sweet words shining in the dark depths of his eyes, it just made her... realize it was time to regain control of the situation.  In fact, it was past time.

"Who I am is the current slayer, who's trying to stage an anti-Armageddon rally if you'll just stop dragging your problems into my town.  It wasn't enough to bring demons here, or Cordelia and what you seem to think of as her unborn hellspawn, or even your son and his amazing hostilities on parade.  No, you had to bring a wanted felon and the only people in the world who want her.  Besides you, of course."

He stalked over to the wall and slapped both palms flat against it.  She could see the muscles in his arms and back corded with tension as he struggled for composure.

"So we're back to that," he growled.  "Why won't you see we're just here to help; no ulterior motives, no hidden agenda?"

"Faith always has a hidden agenda," she said flatly.  "It's where she's hiding it these days that I wonder about."

"You need her on your side; she's nearly as strong as you are, even if you don't want to admit it."  Angel spun around to glare at her, his frustration getting the better of him.  "I'm not exactly a 90-pound weakling myself.  And while I admit Connor may look a little like one, he's almost as strong as I am.  Almost."

"I didn't say anything about..." she began, but he refused to let her finish until he'd had his say.

"Do you really think you and Spike can handle the actual fight alone?  Spike?"  

She heard the disbelief in his voice and it surprised her a little.  She knew he detested Spike, and for more reasons than her relationship with him.  What she hadn't realized before was that Angel didn't even respect Spike as one vampire to another.

"He knows how to fight, Angel.  Just because he couldn't kill me, or you for that matter, doesn't mean he's worthless as backup."

"It takes more than muscles to make a good second, Buffy; it takes brains.  You have to be able to see not just the goal, but what you have to do to get there, and anticipate what the bad guys might do to keep you from it."

"Angel, I know all this.  Why..."

"That last part... Spike just can't get around his own ego to think about.  He can't imagine not getting what he wants."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."  

She was no longer talking about Spike, and as far apart as he felt from her at that moment, Angel knew it.  He looked at her with all the hurts of the past simmering just beneath the surface of his dark eyes.

"It can be a fatal thing.  We both know that."

She could not do this; if Buffy knew anything, she knew that.  She dragged her gaze from the hypnotic pull of his steady brown eyes and tried to lighten the mood.  

"Well if you thought he was such a loser, why did Angelus keep hanging out with him decade after decade?"

Angel sighed.  "He kept Dru amused, which translated to 'out of my hair'."

"And I suppose a puppy was out of the question?  Wait, no," she raised her hand, "don't answer that."

"What did you ever see in him anyway?" he asked as she processed these new revelations.  "I mean he's not exactly your type."

"My type?" she squeaked.  So much for discussing Spike's combat-readiness; now Angel was looking for some personal stones to throw.  "You mean because he's not like you?"

"Yeah, though God knows he tries to be."  Angel's laugh had a bitter edge to it now, knowing he was the butt of this particular joke.  

Buffy looked away, focusing on the blanket-covered windows as she tried to collect herself.  Spike's wardrobe changes, and what he claimed to be a renewed interest in literature, had not gone unnoticed by her either.  The brooding, though, was still very much a work in progress.

"Maybe he's just... ready for a change," she mumbled, still not facing Angel.  "A new look."

Angel didn't believe that for a second; he knew his childe too well.  Unfortunately it was Buffy believed that mattered, and since he didn't feel like tackling the Summers' stubborn streak he also remembered so well Angel tried to shift the conversation back to business.  

'Tried' being the operative word.

"Buffy, you're the strongest slayer there ever was, but if it's just going to be two against the First you need someone faster, someone trickier, someone, well... bigger than him to help you with this fight."

She couldn't hold back a snort as she turned back to him.  "So now you're telling me size matters?"

Angel didn't say a word; he didn't have to.  His eyes, and the crooked little smirk he wasn't making much of an effort to suppress, said it all.

"That... that's just rude," she sputtered.  "And none of your business."

"You could fit him in Riley's pocket.  Or dangle him from Owen's keychain.  That's what I meant by not your type."  He looked down at his feet, suddenly ashamed of himself and angry for feeling that shame.  "Among other things."  

She wanted to come up with some brilliant and scathing rejoinder, but her brain was caught on one tiny point.

"Owen?  You remember Owen?"

Angel's chin snapped up, his dark eyes sending a signal she recognized but couldn't believe.

"You mean, 'This is Owen, my date' Owen?  Yeah, I remember him."

_He was still jealous of a boy she had one date with six... no, seven years ago_.  She wasn't sure whether she wanted to giggle or cry for the silly sadness of it.  With great difficulty, she tamped down both urges.  If he could still see some sort of competition in Owen, that definitely screamed 'Danger, Will Robinson!' for the current situation.

"I can't believe you still... can't deal with Spike."  She drew a deep breath and prepared for battle.  "He's been here fighting all along while you were in LA.  Maybe you're the stronger one, but these days I know more of what he can do.  I know more about him period."

As usual, Angel had prompted her into saying more than she intended, bringing the ghost of Riley into the present with the reminder of their last Faith-related fight.  Except that one hadn't really been any more about Faith than this one.  It was about trust, her trust, and where she bestowed it.  Against Angel, it was the ultimate weapon she could wield.

He was silent for a moment, regrouping.  When he spoke again, his voice was once again calm and rational.  And very cool.

"And what about the rest of my people?  Wesley is a lot brighter than you ever gave him credit for, and Fred is," he shrugged, "brilliant.  They're both pretty handy with broadswords too, in case you care, which I'm starting to doubt.  Gunn has spent most of his life taking care of himself and a carload of kids against vampires, and Lorne knows things about other dimensions that you can't even dream of."  His only display of emotion was the telltale gritting of his teeth as he repeated the familiar refrain, "We can help, if you let us."

She crossed her arms protectively over her chest and shook her head.  "Not if you bring police into my home."

"We won't."   It was a flat statement, allowing no room for rebuttal.  "They won't find her, and if even half of what I remember about Sunnydale still holds true, they'll have better things to do at night than look for me.  The police won't be a problem."

"You don't know that."

"If they become a problem I'll get Faith out of here immediately," he promised.  "Me too, if that's what it takes."

It wasn't what she wanted.  She'd thought she finally had the edge when the police showed up, but Angel refused to even recognize them as an obstacle.  His persistence and optimism, or what was masquerading as such traits, were beginning to bug her; where were they four years ago when they could have done them both some good?

"I have to go back to work," she said, making no promises even as she bowed temporarily to his determination.  

"Buffy, wait."  

Angel held out his hand towards her in appeal, though he was too far away to touch her.  His face as softer now too, his clenched jaw relaxed and an almost pleading look in his eyes.

"Before you go, you have to know... you have to realize... Spike should have been able to notice the First's lack of smell.  If he didn't tell you... well, what else could he be hiding that might save your life?"

_No._  She was not letting the conversation go that way, not when she'd already conceded too much by just letting Angel & Co. stay.

"That kind of info won't save my life," she quickly retorted.  "I mean, okay, so we'll know who to ignore if the First pops up all non-smelly in my house and starts yacking away about the end of the world.  Assuming, of course, you can not smell something over the smell of twenty people living in a three-bedroom house."

"You know as well as I do that every piece of information you can gather adds to the overall picture of your enemy.  And if someone hides one thing, even a small thing... you can't trust them."

For so long she'd held her temper, being the strong and silent Buffy she thought the world needed her to be.  She never confronted her loved ones with the rage she felt at her resurrection, at her mother's death, at the disaster that had been her reunion with Angel last year, at the disaster her life had become.  They were her problems and she would deal, or not deal, as she saw fit.  

The only one who'd seen any of it was Spike, whose sole reflective quality was the ability to beam self-hatred back at her; for a long time that was enough to sustain her.  Something about Angel, though, brought out memories of the old Buffy, the one who still knew how to cry when she was in pain and yell when she was angry.

The one who offered trust, and expected it in return.

"Oh, Connor's not that small, Angel."

* * * * *

"What do you mean you 'think' there used to be a supermarket here, Wes?"  Gunn gestured at the dock that had unexpectedly appeared at the end of the road the Watcher had driven down.  "It's a harbor, man, and it looks like the ocean hasn't moved in a while."

Wesley smiled sourly at him.  "Don't be ridiculous; the shoreline erodes daily."

"And one day it took the fresh produce aisle with it?"  Gunn rubbed his forehead between his index finger and thumb, a gesture he'd unwittingly picked up from Angel.  "I thought you used to live in this town.  Didn't you ever have to buy food?"

"It was four years ago!  And, umm, actually... not often," the former Watcher admitted.   "I usually contrived to visit Mr. Giles at mealtimes, he being the best source of information on the slayers in my charge and I being..."

"Cheap?" Gunn suggested with a grin.  

"Unsure.  Untested."   Wesley sighed at the memory of his younger, and very green, self.  Looking back at his time in Sunnydale was hardly his favorite pastime; it had begun badly and ended worse.  "And being rather severely tested by Buffy and Faith's antics, I might add.  I needed a taste of home, and Mr. Giles' cooking, and company, were as close as I could come to it."  He glanced over at Gunn.  "I'd never lived on my own before, you see."

"You're kidding, right?"  Gunn stared at him.  "As old as you are?"

"I beg your pardon!"

"I didn't," Gunn held up his hands, "whoa, English, I didn't mean it that way.  But even four years ago I don't think you were exactly right out of college."

"I was right out of Watcher's training, which is a good deal more insular and restrictive than university.  Sunnydale was an experience for me in many ways, most of them not demon-related."

Gunn sank back into his seat, reflecting for what seemed like the thousandth time on the ways that Wesley fit with Fred better than he did.  Fred had grown up in a school-oriented world as well, probably just as sheltered as Wesley, though in her case the shield between she and the world had been her loving parents and not the stuffy Watcher's Council.  Gunn, on the other hand, had grown up as the shield itself.  The idea of reaching adulthood without living on your own, let alone spending part of your adult life like that, was as foreign to him as... Wesley.

That didn't mean he liked the idea of just handing over his girl to the man, though.

"We're going to need help," Wesley murmured, eying the harbor below them with dissatisfaction.  "If we can't even find a grocery store without a map, I think the chances of us tumbling across the path to ultimate evil on our own are somewhat remote."

"So in other words, we ain't got a chance in a hellmouth."

"Well said."  Wesley put the car in reverse and glanced over his shoulder as he backed the car up.  "Or at the very least... correct."

* * * * *

Angel flinched at Buffy's charge even though he'd known it was coming eventually, and even though he knew he deserved it.  He had concealed Connor's existence from her knowing that each day would make the secret that much more painful to her should it be revealed.  Now he had to pay the price and so did she.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly.  "I should have told you before, but..."

She held up one hand.  "Save it.  I think I can guess anyway.  I mean Darla and I weren't exactly girlfriends, what with her trying to kill me and attacking my mom and all that."

She could understand.  She did understand.  She just didn't like what she understood.

"That was a big part of it."  He drew a deep breath.  "And then when he was kidnapped, I... I couldn't come running to you to share my grief when I hadn't shared the good parts.  It wouldn't have been fair."

"He was kidnapped?"  Despite her best intentions she was being pulled into his orbit again, both physically and emotionally.  "Who?  When?  How did you... when did you get him back?"

"He was kidnapped by someone who had good reason to hate Angelus."  It took all of his strength to keep his voice steady, but he held fast.  "He was just a few months old when Holtz took him to a hell dimension.  Then a few more weeks passed and Connor came back on his own.  He was a teenager already and he, well, he hated me."  Angel forced a crooked smile, as though it were no big deal.  "He wanted to kill me, actually."  

No need to mention that his son had indeed tried to kill him, and more than once.  Someday maybe, when she knew more of Connor and what drove him, Angel would explain.  For today it was hard enough to share intent.

"Now I'm the one who's sorry.  If I'd known..."

"But you didn't," he quickly interrupted.  "Because I never told you.  So don't... just don't, okay?"

Angel didn't mean to be abrupt with her, but he'd made his decisions, and the fact that he now knew they were stupid ones didn't alter them or their effect in the slightest.  To go back down that road and rethink every path he might have chosen was a waste of time and grief.

"Okay."  

Buffy wanted to say something more, something to heal the broken look she spied in his eyes before he turned his head away.  But even if words could have helped she wasn't the one who needed to speak them, and she didn't know Connor well enough to drag them out of him. 

"I guess I should be going anyway.  I, umm, have to get back to work."

"I'll see you tonight," he promised.  "As soon as the sun sets."

She backed up slowly towards the door.  "I'd say it seems like old times, but... well, nothing seems the same anymore."

"Speak for yourself." A half-smile flitted across his lips, vanishing almost before she could recognize the expression.  "I keep on bumping into the past everywhere I turn."

* * * * *

Anya's head bobbed up briefly when she heard the bell over the door jingle.  "We're closed," she called out wearily.  

The thought of turning away yet another customer, and the customer's lovely credit cards... or better yet, cash...  was almost physically painful after these long months of deprivation.  But she had no choice.  The repairs needed after Willow's temper tantrum were extensive, and expensive, and Giles hadn't exactly been raking in the bucks necessary to accomplish them by chasing down young girls all over the world.

"It's just me," a voice called from the doorway.  

Not just 'a' voice, but a vaguely familiar and not-going-away voice.  Anya lifted her head once again to see who the interloper was.

"Cordelia Chase?"  Anya slipped out from behind the counter.  "You got fat.  Why couldn't you have done that when I was still with Xander and feeling insecure about his potential fidelity?"

"I'm not fat, Anya."  Cordelia rolled her eyes and pointed to her abdomen.  "I'm pregnant."

"Yeah, that too," Anya agreed.  "That would have made me feel better."  She frowned.  "As long as I was positive it wasn't Xander's baby.  That would have made me feel insecure as well.  Maybe more so than you being thin."  

She considered her position once again.  "Probably more so," was her final verdict.

Cordelia sighed as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other.  "Well I can see the train to Normal hasn't pulled into your station yet.  Can I sit down?  Or is that going to make you feel insecure too?"

"Why have you come here?  We're not friends; why would you visit me?"

"So that's a 'yes' to the chair issues."

"I'm working; I don't have time for visitors."  Anya gestured to the empty store.  "This is all mine.  Well, mine and Giles', but I run things.  Or I will be when I get the place open again.  And that's hard enough to do with all the apocalypsy stuff going on; I really don't have time to chat with my ex-fiancé's ex-girlfriend."  Suddenly she scowled at Cordelia.  "Though I'd think you might have made time for this chat when I first started dating Xander.  You might have told me he had commitment issues."

"You came to Sunnydale to give me vengeance because he cheated on me."  Cordelia lightly smacked her forehead with the base of her palm.  "Hello!  Does that sound like a guy who can commit?"

"So you came to talk over old times?"

"In a way."  Cordelia spied a chair pushed up against the wall behind the counter and slid past Anya to take a seat.  "I came with Angel to help out with this little apocalypse you've got going, but I'm not much use in a fight these days."  She rubbed her abdomen.  "So I'm trying to mend some fences instead.  Play Cupid.  Spread the love.  The closer we all are, the better we fight, right?"

Anya frowned.  "That sounds reasonable, in a cultish sort of way.  So why don't I trust you?"

"Because you remember me as being essentially untrustworthy," Cordelia answered serenely.  "Which is pretty much what I've heard about you.  But I guess Giles trusts you, at least with his money, so who am I to argue?"

"I am trustworthy," Anya said stoutly.  "I'm very careful with the money.  I like money."  Her lower lip slipped out, hovering on the edge of a pout.  "I miss money."

Cordelia smiled, her eyes soft with understanding.  "Yeah, me too."

"So this is something we have in common besides being treated badly by Xander.  Did you want to make this the basis for a friendship?"

"In a way.  I... well, this is kind of embarrassing to admit, but I need money.  For the baby."  She pointed to her abdomen, just to keep Anya focused.  "Angel's been a big help and all, but it's not like he's rolling in it or anything.  He certainly doesn't have enough to let me take care of my baby the way I want her to be taken care of."

"What about the baby's father?"

Cordelia chuckled.  "Well, that would actually be Angel's son... it's a long story," she added hastily when she saw Anya's mouth open to pose a question.  "But that means we're back to money and the not having of it.  So I was thinking..." she paused for effect.  "Well, you used to be a witch before you became a demon, right?  So you must know some get-rich-quick spells or something.  Nothing fancy, but something a little more reliable than the lottery or winning 'Survivor'."

Anya couldn't believe it; the answer had been right in front of her the whole time and she'd been too brainwashed by Xander and his harem to realize it.

"Use witchcraft to get money?  But that would be wrong.  Wouldn't that be wrong?"

"I think that depends on why you need the money," Cordelia said slowly.  "If you want it to spend on... evil things... or just plain silly stuff, then sure, it's wrong.  But if you want to use it to support yourself or your baby, or maybe to get on your feet again so you can provide a public service... well, that's not so bad.  At least it doesn't sound like it to me."

Anya took a long hard look at the store that just one year ago had provided her with happiness and purpose.  And money.  Whatever her problems with Xander, she'd had the store to come home to.  Or she'd had it until Willow and her Magickal Hysteria Tour roared through.  Suddenly it seemed only fair to use magick to restore it.  Symmetrical even.

"No, it doesn't sound so bad to me either," she murmured, never noticing the flash of triumph shoot through Cordelia's eyes.  "This store does provide a service.  This town needs me."  

Her voice grew stronger and more authoritative as she continued, her mind caught up in visions of times not so far in the past when she had been... somebody.  

"Xander's friends need me too, even though they'd all be eaten by Hexleg slime demons before any of them admitted it."  She suddenly remembered her audience and turned to Cordelia.  "They used to come here every day, did you know that?"  

"Slime demons?"  Cordelia wrinkled her nose.  "Now there's something to put on the web page."

"No, Buffy and all the others.  The Scoobies, whatever that's supposed to mean; Xander never would explain it to me."  Anya frowned at the memory.  "You'd think he could take five minutes to explain to the woman he planned to spend a lifetime with that... oh, never mind," she sighed.  

"And that still didn't clue you in to the commitment no-can-do?"

"They used to come here every day to do research," Anya continued as though Cordelia hadn't spoken.  "Xander would bring the doughnuts and they'd send Dawn out for coffee so she couldn't hear what they were talking about.  They'd sit around that table," she gestured to a tidy pile of broken wooden slats stacked against a wall, "reading books from those shelves," her eyes swung up to the empty bookcases on the second floor ledge, shelves dangling and in some cases missing entirely, "and even though they sometimes scared away the paying customers I never complained."  She paused; Anya was nothing if not honest, sometimes painfully so.  "Well, I did complain but it's not like they listened so that really doesn't count."

"You know this is fascinating, but..." Cordelia started to rise, holding out her hand to Anya for help, but her companion was oblivious to anything save her own lonely little world.

"Now..." Anya's hand waved in a half-circle, displaying her pride and joy in all its ruined splendor, "it's all gone.  They have meetings and research parties and they don't even invite me.  I'm just another useless ex that Buffy doesn't have the heart to kill."  She sniffled a little as her lower lip began to quiver anew.  "I'm like Spike to them now."

"But we can change all that."  Cordelia gave up trying to grab Anya's hand and settled for her shoulder as support.  As she drew herself level with the ex-demon's startled face, she put the ball in Anya's court.   "Can't we?"

* * * * *

One by one the staff of Angel Investigations straggled back to the mansion, most with less than charitable comments to make about Angel's directions and suggestions for the day.  Faith was quickly reconciled to her bobbed red hair with black streaks, but she hadn't taken Fred's clothing suggestions kindly, even when Fred explained some of them had come from Angel.  Retro was one thing, but she drew the line at 70's retro.  At least she tried to.

Lorne's search for an edible breakfast had led him on a long and circuitous journey, ending back at Casa de Angel when all other hope had failed.  Unfortunately for him, it was another two hours before Gunn and Wesley arrived with supplies.  

Connor was on edge; he said it was because he got lost on the way back to Buffy's and it took him forever to find the right house.  For a change, Cordelia was the only one without any complaints; she said she'd had a nice nap at Buffy's house and then enjoyed a quiet afternoon catching up on her reading with Connor.  

All in all, Angel was grateful when the sun finally set and he could get them out of the house.  After he fixed dinner, of course, and everyone got changed for patrol.  And the weapons were selected.  And the weapons were argued over.  And the weapons were redistributed.  And Cordy used the powder room.  Three times.  

Angel loved his new family, and he was grateful for the touch of humanity they brought to his life.  He just wished they weren't always so relentlessly... human... about it.

* * * * *

There was a full complement of Scoobies and SITs camped out in the Summers' living room when the LA contingent arrived.  Dawn rushed over to give Angel a hug as soon as he was in the door, and a moment later a strange young woman followed suit.  His second greeter made a point of tossing her blonde hair in Xander's direction after she let Angel go, which suggested this was the Anya that Buffy had once told him about.

"Okay, now that everybody's here," Buffy shot Anya a hard glance, "and made to feel at home... why don't we get rolling?  Angel, I'm guessing you guys are going to want to stick together, which leaves Spike with me and the newbies.  I guess Xander can help Willow with the research, or maybe Anya..."

"Actually, Buffy, can I talk to you a minute before we head out?"  Angel didn't want to rearrange her plans, but his friends' experiences had left him little choice.  

Buffy glanced at Spike, just in time to see the snap in his eyes and the clenching of his jaw, before he rearranged his face into its usual bland mask.

"I think we need to get moving," she said briskly.  "We can talk later."  They wouldn't, of course, but it sounded better than a flat 'no.'

"This can't wait."

She raised her eyebrow at Angel and tapped her foot impatiently.  "So you don't want to be stuck with Faith after all?" 

Angel had wanted to do this in private, so it wouldn't seem like he was trying to take over, but now Buffy was the one not leaving him a choice.

"We have a problem," he began.  "An easy one to solve," he added hastily, "but still a problem.  We don't know this town well enough.  Some of us have never lived here, and those that have aren't familiar with the recent changes."

"And how," Lorne exclaimed.  "That fabu diner Angel sent me to this morning is now a redneck bar.  Not that I object to a Bloody Mary as a morning aperitif, but the patrons didn't look like they'd welcome my kind."  He straightened his collar and shook his head at the narrowness of the small town mind.  "Entertainers have always been misunderstood by the common man."

"So you're not blending well, huh?"  Buffy shot Angel a triumphant look.  "If I say I told you so..."

"I'll bring up every time I could have said it to you and didn't," Angel promised his former lover with a small smile.  "Look, there's an easy fix – we team up.  It makes more sense anyway because we can cover more ground.  Willow said you need to find the rest of the Bringers and track down what they're protecting for the First; that's going to take a lot of tracking."

"Teams?" Buffy asked doubtfully.  "That sounds way too gym class for my taste."

"What are you worried about?" Andrew grumbled from his corner of the sofa.  "I bet you always got picked first."

She glared down at him.  "You're not getting picked at all, so you're the one who can stop worrying."

"It makes sense," Angel repeated.  "Wes and I figured if we put one of our people with one of yours, and also pair superpowers with straight human, we should be able to do patrol and teach your SITs something to boot."

"Loose definition of 'straight humans' of course," Faith added, winking at Willow.

Willow smiled sweetly back at her.  "Oh, was that a joke about me not being straight or you not being human?"

"I don't think we have enough people," Buffy said loudly, hoping to drown out any potential reply from Faith.  She was learning quickly from Angel on that score.

"Sure we do," Dawn piped up.  "There's 6 of us and, oh, well seven of them if you count Cordelia.  But I bet she won't want to patrol, so then there's..."

"Five," Buffy said firmly.  "Because you're not going."

"Hey, you've let me patrol before," her younger sister protested.

"Yeah, with me."

"So I'll go with you."  Dawn jumped to her feet.  "Works for me."

"Actually, why don't you come with me, Dawn?" Angel said quickly, seeing the protest forming in Buffy's eyes.  "It's been a long time since I was roaming around Sunnydale at night.  I could use someone who still knows their way."

"I can take her," Spike said.  His voice was rough with the effort to hold back all the things he wanted to say to his sire.  "I always take care of Niblet if Buffy can't."

"Well Buffy can," the Slayer snapped.  "But okay, go with Angel, Dawnie."  She quickly counted heads.  "That'll even things out as far as guides go."

"Fine," the blond vampire snarled.  He looked around the room, trying to decide who would rouse Angel's temper the fastest.  He'd show Buffy who the real Mr. Cool was.  "So who does that leave me with?  Your brat, I suppose?" he asked his sire.

"No," Angel and Buffy said at the same time.

"Nice unison, guys."  Xander nodded approvingly, though it was more the flash of anger he saw on Spike's face that he endorsed than Buffy's mental communion with Angel.  "But you might need to spell it out for Spike.  Must be the English thing, but he has trouble understanding some words.  Like, say, 'no'."

Buffy glanced nervously from Angel to Spike.  "Xander, quit it."

"What is he talking about?" Angel asked, shutting his mind to the idea that had instantly slithered in.  She'd been acting so strange, defending Spike yet almost seeming afraid of him.  But Spike lived here, in her home, at her invitation.  No matter the past, what Angel was thinking couldn't be true.

She smiled, or at least she tried to.  "Nothing, as usual."  

Xander stared at Buffy, trying to see some remnant of the girl he once thought he knew so well.  He'd tried to reason with her about Spike; he'd tried over and over, each time hoping he'd manage to break those rose-colored glasses before they turned blood red.  For a minute tonight he'd even had the crazy idea that Angel could make a difference, and in spite of the past he would have asked the vampire for help in a heartbeat if he thought Buffy would respond.  But at last it had come home to Xander that when it came to Spike, she didn't want to be helped, not even by Angel. 

"Yeah, it's nothing."  Xander's voice was quiet and resigned, awkwardly balanced against the grin he was trying to force his lips to shape.  "Just me and my crazy sense of humor."

Buffy drew a quick sigh of relief.  "So," she asked brightly, "where were we with the Noah's Ark game?"

Angel frowned, making a mental note to return to this subject when he finally managed to get Buffy alone.

"I was thinking Wesley could go with Spike."  Not that Wesley was thrilled about it, of course, but he and Angel had agreed someone needed to keep an eye on Spike.  And that someone was definitely _not going to be his son.  "I'm counting Connor among the Super Friends; he just needs a guide."  With a sigh of resignation, Angel nodded at Xander.  "Xander, you're with Connor.  Neither one of you can stand me; you should get along just fine."_

"Well if that's the only qualification..." Spike drawled.

Xander wasn't happy to be charged with baby-sitting duty once again, particularly for Angel's kid.  Buffy had enough to deal with, though, keeping Spike and Angel from tearing each others' throats out, so he decided to be a good sport.  For now.

"So, superpowers, eh?"  His smile was almost as doubtful as his voice.  "Could that be a little fatherly exaggeration?"

He received his answer a moment later when he clapped his hand on Connor's shoulder and the boy flipped him over his shoulder and against the far wall.

"Ow.  And, umm, ow."

"Connor," Angel said sharply, "enough.  If you hurt him again, you answer to me."  He looked down at Xander lying on the rug at his feet.  "That goes double for you."

Xander slowly raised his arm from the floor and waved a shaky index finger at Angel.  "Anything you say, Dad."

"So what about me?" asked the clingy female who had greeted Angel at the door.  "Who do I get?"

"Anya?" he asked tentatively.  At her nod, he continued, "I think you should go with Faith."

Actually it had been Cordelia who suggested Anya should go with Faith, but Angel couldn't argue with her logic.  Buffy's extreme reaction to Faith, combined with her protective streak, precluded pairing the second slayer with Xander or Dawn, and Willow had powers of her own to contribute as a leader.  That left Anya, whose ingratiating smile had quickly turned into a pout.  

"Faith?  I may not require constant male companionship, unlike some people," she tossed a glance at Buffy over her shoulder, "but I do prefer a little sanity in my escorts."

"Hmm," Cordelia mused, "so even without the leather pants you still scream 'escort,' Faith."

The Slayer ignored Cordelia, turning a patently false smile on Anya.  "Don't worry, Anya; I can manage a little sanity."  
  


"The key word being 'little'," Xander commented as Willow helped him to his feet.

Faith casually stroked the stake in her hand.  "Yeah, that would be a key word for you, Harris."

"Fred," Angel said loudly, "could you go with Buffy?"  He turned to the Slayer.  "She's got good instincts with the stake; don't be afraid to let her fight on her own."

"Listen, I'm fine with Fred riding shotgun for me, but I'm not really loving the idea of Faith taking charge of any of these girls."

Angel sighed and tried once more to reason past her understandable suspicion of Faith.  "Buffy, we discussed this earlier.  I thought you understood.  I thought we agreed."

Spike looked sharply from his sire to his Slayer.  "Discussed what earlier?  And when is this earlier?  Where was I?"

Buffy closed her eyes for an instant.  She knew this was going to happen; this was exactly why she hadn't wanted Angel to stay.  Well, part of it anyway.

"Earlier as in last night.  You were here, Spike."  She frowned at her sister slayer.  "And no one said anything then about leaving Faith alone with these girls."

"What are you worried about, Buffy?"  Cordelia's voice radiated innocent curiosity, although it stretched her acting skills almost to the limit.  "Angel trusts Faith; don't you trust Angel?"

"This is about Faith, not Angel," the elder Slayer answered quickly.  "She's not exactly the greatest role model, you know.  Or am I the only one who remembers?"

Faith was getting a little tired of Saint Buffy's 'tude.  She was doing her best to be a good friend and a good slayer, to make up for some of the sins of her past, but Buffy wouldn't let her past the gate.  Faith was starting to suspect it had more to do with her being a good friend to Angel in the present than not being a good slayer in the past, though, and that was something she wasn't willing to take heat for.

"I think I'm a great role model for slayers, B."  Faith smirked at the older girl.  "How many times have I died in the past few years?"

"That's not fair, Faith."  

Angel spoke quietly, and he didn't even sound particularly stern.  It was the hurt in his voice that made Faith flush and look away.  It wasn't enough to appease Buffy, however.

"Being too selfish to sacrifice yourself for someone else isn't exactly something to brag about, Faith."

Angel held up his hand before Faith could reply.  He hated having to rake up the past now, when they should be focusing on the First, and he hated even more to censure Buffy in front of her friends and the SITs.  Some things, though, needed to be set straight.  Fair was fair.

"Faith risked a lot to help the others contain Angelus, and then instead of just taking off she came along to help clean up the mess here.  I think she understands the concept of sacrifice now, Buffy, if not then."

Buffy clenched her jaw, fighting back the reply she wanted to make.  Angel's defense of Faith didn't deserve comment, she decided; it was just too ridiculous.  If he wanted to equate breaking out of prison with offering your life for your sister's... well, let him.  Let him pretend Faith left this great fulfilling life behind her in prison, filled with fun times and a promising future.

"Fine," she snapped.  "Now are we finally all paired off for this square dance?"

Angel glanced around the room.  "If Gunn could go with Willow, I think we're good.  Lorne is going to stay here with Cordy, and serve as home base."  He glanced around the room, raising his voice so that all could hear.  "My people all have cells, and Buffy's number is programmed into speed dial.  If you get into trouble, if you see anything suspicious, call in."

Buffy blinked.  "You have a cell phone?  You _use a cell phone?"_

"Only under duress," Cordelia sighed.

"I use it," Angel said defensively.  "And I figured it would be practical if everyone else had one while we were here, especially after this morning's problems.  Fred helped me arrange it."  He frowned uneasily.  "You don't think it's a good idea?"

"No, it's umm, great, a great idea."  Buffy smiled softly at him, her eyes fixed on his as though they were the only two people in the room.  "You just keep surprising me, that's all."

Wesley sensed things were wandering off-track again, and decided it was past time someone else stepped in.

"All right, now that we have procedure settled, we need to get moving.  What are we going to do with our young friends?"  He gestured to the SITs, now clustered on one side of the living room.

"I thought we'd divide the girls between us all," Angel explained.  "Three per team."

"What are we going to do," Wesley asked, "have them draw straws?"

"Short stake goes with Spike," Xander suggested.

"Why can't they choose?" Fred suggested.  She flushed when heads swiveled towards her, but she held her ground.  "They know Buffy's friends, and they've at least talked to the rest of us for a few minutes; they should have an idea who they could learn something from."  She smiled shyly at Buffy.  "And it's less like picking teams in gym class that way."

Buffy threw up her hands, absolving herself of responsibility for any of this anarchy.  "You heard her, girls.  Pick your poison."

With a few nervous, and in some cases speculative, glances at the assembled teams, the SITs began to splinter off.  Eventually this left Chao Ahn standing alone in the center of the living room, wondering why they were splitting up into little groups, and who was directing them.  The language barrier had prevented her from forming any particular friendships among Team Slayer; she could not decide whom she should follow.  Under her breath she muttered a curse her grandfather used to use when her mother was out of earshot.

To her surprise, the dark-haired vampire looked in her direction and responded, in very slow and stilted Mandarin.  Her jaw dropped in shock, and then she began chattering excitedly; it was such a relief to finally have someone to talk to, even a vampire.  He introduced himself as Angel, but he'd barely begun to explain what was going on with the different groups in the living room before the little blonde they called Buffy interrupted him. 

"Wait a sec, you know what she's saying?"  Buffy looked at Angel in amazement.  

"More or less."  He made a face.  "I'm still pretty fluent in Vietnamese, but I think I've forgotten almost as much Chinese as I remember.  I haven't been there since the turn of the century.  The one before last."  Angel nodded at Wesley.  "Wes might be able to help, though."

The former Watcher looked surprised.  "Me?  Why on earth should I know Chinese?"

Buffy answered for Angel, frowning as she spoke.  "Well I know Wills was surprised Giles didn't know it, with all the Watcher training."

"In the event I'd been assigned a Chinese slayer, I would have been sent to a Berlitz course for language, and taught rudimentary customs and history," Wesley explained.  "But normally the young lady would have been assigned a Watcher who already spoke her native tongue."

Buffy turned back to Angel, her curiosity already satisfied.  Wesley, however, wasn't quite finished.

"The Council's educational focus is on the languages one most often encounters in ancient texts, and on demonic cults and cultures."  With a deliberate nod and a small smile in Faith's direction, he added, "I've often wished, however, that someone had realized the need for indoctrination prior to an American assignment."

"Yeah, you were pretty hard to understand at first, Wes," the dark-haired slayer agreed with a smirk.

"Whatever," Buffy sighed.  "All I know is that Chao Ahn is with Angel from here on out."   She pressed her hand to Chao Ahn's back and gently pushed the girl towards Angel, effectively closing the matter for discussion.

Spike had finally had enough.  Angel obviously wasn't satisfied just sticking his fangs in where they didn't belong; now he had to try and shanghai the whole operation, as though Spike didn't have things completely under control already.

"Of course she's with Angel," he burst out.  "Why doesn't everybody go with good old Angel?  The rest of us are just window dressing anyway."

"Oh goody," Xander grumbled.  "I'd hate it if we missed the 8 o'clock tantrum."

Angel turned slowly towards his outspoken childe, fixing Spike in his coolly amused gaze.  "You could have learned Chinese yourself, Spike; you were there as long as I was.  I even offered to teach you what I'd picked up, but you preferred to sleep all day."  He shrugged.  "Not my fault if your desire to become useless ornament to society panned out."

Buffy swiftly moved between the two vampires, just as Spike started to lunge for Angel.  "Okay, boys," she said, pushing back hard on the blond vampire's chest, "it's time to go play outside now.  Away from each other," she emphasized.

Spike shot Angel one last venomous look and stalked out of the house, not checking to see if Wesley and the SITs in their charge were following.  Rona shivered as he passed very close by her; his anger was almost visibly rippling off his skin.

"We'll be at the docks," Spike called from the porch.  "In case anyone cares if we don't come back."

There was an uneasy moment of silence.

"The docks, huh?  So, some place Wes knows how to get to on his own," Gunn observed.  Someone had to say something, just to break the tension.  "Unless you need to be heading to the grocery store to find them, English."

Angel didn't give Wesley a chance to respond; time was running short.  "Wesley, be careful," he cautioned.  "He's got all the self-control of a wounded bear right now."

Wesley smiled grimly as he ushered Molly out the door ahead of him.  "I'm not the one who's baiting him."

"That may not matter to Spike."

Buffy stared at Angel, her eyes wide with disbelief.  "Don't you think it would have been handy to remember that _before_ you started yanking his chain?"

* * * * *

Buffy was still fuming as she led Fred and a small group of SITs down a dark alley in the business district.

"What in the hell was he thinking of, getting Spike all worked up and then sending Wesley out with him?  Wesley?"  Her voice rose to a squeak.  "Talk about leading lambs to slaughter; he might as well have smothered Wesley in mint jelly!"  Buffy considered the idea for a moment.  "Eww.  Bad thought, bad thought."

"Wesley can take care of himself," Fred assured her.  "But don't you... well, don't you trust Spike?"

The three SITs following them waited with bated breath for the Slayer's response.  Between Spike, Principal Wood and now Angel, her romantic entanglements beat "Passions" any day.

Buffy abruptly halted her angry march and whirled to confront Fred.  "Why does everyone suddenly think I have these major trust issues?"  

Fred bit her lip.  "I didn't say issues.  It's just..." 

"This has nothing to do with trust," Buffy said, hoping she sounded more convincing to Fred than she did to herself.  "It's just that you don't... you don't get someone all angried up before patrol – it just confuses things."  _That was it; that sounded good._  "It makes you sloppy."

"I don't know if he can help it.  I don't know if either of them can."  Fred paused as she tried to find a delicate way to lecture Buffy about two men she was supposed to know so well.  "I mean I've only been here a day, but I can see how much they don't like each other.  And when Angel gets mad..." Fred shuddered, "well, you just don't want to get him mad."

"I can get mad too, and they better not forget it," Buffy declared. 

She spun on her heel and began heading down the alley again, but she only got a few steps before she stopped and turned back to look at Fred.

"So you know Angel pretty well, I guess.  I mean if you've seen him mad... he doesn't usually let that side show to just anyone."

Fred raised her hand to her mouth, pretending to cough so she could cover the grin that she couldn't suppress.  It was nice to find herself involved in someone else's romantic tangles for a change, and such simple tangles at that.  Curses, clauses, uncontrollable demons, unalterable destiny... they were child's play.  The tough part came later, when the inter-dimensional portal yawned at your feet and you had to decide who got to do the murdering and who was in charge of the forgiveness.

"I've seen a lot because of Connor," Fred finally answered, slowly moving to catch up with the Slayer.  "You know how protective Angel can be, and what with all the assassins, and then trying to get him back from Quortoth... we're talking major anger here."

Assassins?  Angel hadn't said anything about assassins.  What other trouble had he hidden from her?

"Yeah, sure I understand.  But, umm, Fred?"  Buffy abruptly switched gears as she recognized an opportunity.  "You've been around... I mean around Angel, umm, Investigations, since Connor was born, right?"

"Since before.  Why?"

Buffy turned her head away, pretending to study the building on her left as she smiled in quiet satisfaction.  Maybe this team idea wasn't such a bad thing after all.

* * * * *

Anya glanced around the deserted park, full of shadows that could contain any number of creepy-crawly things.  Demons too.  

"Shouldn't we be in a cemetery or something?" she asked Faith.  "I'll be happy to show you one.  Or seven.  There's even one near my store.  Well, not my store exactly.  Not mine alone is what I mean.  Giles actually..."  

Faith waved away her offer.  "Cemeteries are for vamps."

"But that's your specialty, isn't it?  I mean you were sort of bred for it, like a sheepdog.  Or a border collie."

"These Bringers could be anywhere," Faith explained, "and I'm betting on some place open, with lots of escape routes."

"Oh."  Anya visibly brightened.  "Escape routes.  I like the sound of that."

"Me too."  Faith tossed Angel's second-best axe from one hand to the other as she strode across the damp grass.  "The more room they have to run, the more fun it is to chase 'em down."

"Now we'll see how to get things done," Rona murmured happily to Isabella, a new SIT from Argentina.  "A plan at last."

"Say," Anya paused dramatically and laid one hand on her hip, "have I mentioned I know where lots of cemeteries are?" 

* * * * *

"So you're saying that little key chain you're bobbing around is going to find us one of those Bringers?"  Gunn frowned doubtfully at the small glass orb Willow was dangling at the end of a silver chain.  "It looks more like an Aggie to me.  I think all we're going to find is a geeky nine-year-old out past his bedtime."

"Have a little faith, Gunn.  Didn't I have the right stuff when it came to bringing Angel back?"

"No arguments here," he conceded.  "You play a mean orb.  I just don't see how a divining rod that looks like a marble is going to bag us a Bringer."

Now it was Willow's turn to frown as she glanced down at the little glass ball.  It should have been showing some trace of the Bringers by now if they were as numerous as Buffy believed.  She shook it, and then pulled it up in front of her face to peer into its slightly clouded depths.

"Maybe we'll go back to using the powder that retraces footsteps," she suggested, tucking the orb into her pocket.

Gunn looked down at his new boots.  They had been intended as a birthday present from Fred, but a delay in the shipping caused them to arrive just barely ahead of the Beast.  Tonight was the first time he'd worn them and already they were lightly covered with flakes of the same luminous silver powder Willow was once again threatening him with.

Then he looked up, at the unfamiliar streets and buildings, at the dozens of shadowy corners where evil could be lurking, at the bored SITs already showing signs of mutinous impulses.

"Pixie dust it is," he agreed with a sigh.

* * * * *

"Magick."  Connor spat out the word like the good son of a Puritan he'd been raised to be.  "This demon uses magick to make people believe he is someone other than who he truly is.  And then... he does nothing more."

Xander stared at the boy, trying to see some glimpse of Angel in his features or expressions.  But it was no use; there was nothing about this kid that seemed familiar.  He was his very own kind of weird.

"Are you thinking of registering a complaint somewhere because the First Evil isn't pro-actively evil?  Cause I'm not sure if this guy has to play by the Better Business Bureau's rules.  In fact I'm pretty sure he doesn't, since his goal is basically the opposite of 'better'."

"It doesn't make sense," Connor insisted.  "There must be a reason, a plan, to this demon's actions."

It was the innocence that confused Xander the most.  How could Angel's son be so clueless about the randomness of evil in the world?  Better yet, how could Cordelia's boyfriend?

"I thought Angel said you grew up in a hell dimension.  They have plans in hell?"

Connor looked away, into the strange dark night.  It was so quiet here; lacking the sounds of nature run wild he'd grown up with on Quortoth, or the roar of compressed humanity he'd discovered in LA.

"It's supposed to be different here," he mumbled.

Xander felt an unexpected wave of pity for Connor.  While he honestly couldn't picture growing up with Angel as his father, and the very attempt to picture it gave him the creeps, he was pretty sure even Angel would be better than hell.  But something told him this stiff, sharp-edged kid wouldn't welcome his sympathy, even if it came dressed as the empathy of a fellow loser in the parental sweepstakes.

"Yeah, well, welcome to reality, kid, hellmouth style.  The bad guys are evil just because hey," Xander shrugged, "they're evil.  And most of them don't have enough in the way of brain power to draw up plans for an Easter egg hunt."  Seized by an irresistible impulse, he decided to give the devil his due.  "Except for your old man, of course."

Connor turned his head sharply, regarding Xander through narrowed eyes.  "You knew Angelus?"

"I had the serious lack of pleasure," Xander agreed.  "Not for long, you understand, but he had a little, umm, soul-slippage while he lived here."

Connor made a decision.  All his life he had heard tales of Angelus' cruelty, but they had come from Holtz, whose judgment had been rendered suspect by the nature of his death.  The summer he'd lived with Gunn and Fred, while Angel lingered on the ocean floor, he'd heard only tales of the brave soul in Angelus' body.  Here, though, was someone who'd known both of them.  Someone, moreover, who did not like Angel but didn't seek to destroy him either.

"Tell me," he asked quietly.

Xander felt an uneasy quiver at the intensity in Connor's eyes.  He had no love for Angel; he never had and he never would.  But he knew nothing of what kind of father Angel was or tried to be.  All he did know was that he didn't want to put himself in the middle of what was obviously a very complicated relationship.  He had father issues enough of his own without taking on anyone else's.

"Listen, I'm not really the right one to play Scheherazade."  He let out a small chuckle, hoping to relax some of the tension out of this very tense kid.  "For one thing those harem pants make me look hippy, you know?"

"I want to know about Angelus," Connor insisted.  "And Angel."

Xander tried again.  "You know he was right when he said I don't like him.  I'm really not the right one to ask.  Maybe Willow...or Buffy.  She knows him best."

"Are you going to lie to me?"

"And again with that stare."  Xander wiped his brow.  "No, I wouldn't lie.  Maybe once, a really long time ago, but not now.  I've got no reason to lie."

"Then tell me."

* * * * *

Cordelia slipped out the front door and onto Buffy's porch, holding her breath until she was sure she heard no footsteps in pursuit.  Andrew she wasn't worried about; she'd already figured out that once he got on Willow's computer and hooked up with all his geekazoid pals he wouldn't notice if she ran through the house naked, let alone if she wasn't there at all.  As for Lorne, that sleeping spell she'd cast should keep him out for at least two hours.  Really, magick was so simple; she couldn't understand why more people didn't use it.  

In a half-hour Anya was supposed to meet her at the Magick Box, after begging off patrol with a headache.  In forty-five minutes, Cordelia should be on her way back to Buffy's with the seeds of chaos firmly planted.  After that, all it would take was a little misdirection and misinformation, cunningly combined with the mistrust she'd already witnessed, and the world would be a much better place.

A better place for she and the baby, that is.  As for the others...well, they'd had their chance.

* * * * *

"This is really cool.  Isn't this really cool?  When you used to live here I was too little to go on patrols, and then you moved away and I grew up and I could go on patrol but you weren't here to go with.  So it's just, well, really cool, that we get to patrol together after all this time."

Angel glanced at Dawn, waiting patiently to see if this was, at long last, a lull in the conversation.  When finally it seemed safe to speak, he raised a finger to his lips.

"Dawn," he said softly, "a good rule of thumb is that it's easier to sneak up on the bad guys if they don't hear you coming."  He smiled, trying to soften his next words.  "They're evil, not deaf."

"Oh, I'm sorry."  Dawn's head immediately dipped to study her sneakers.  "It's just that Buffy always talks a lot on patrol... well, lectures.  She lectures.  A lot.  And you know how quiet Xander isn't and if they're not talking to each other they're telling Spike to stop talking and, well, there's usually a lot of talking going on."

"I remember."  

And he did remember, with painful clarity.  Some of the most meaningful conversations he'd had with Buffy had been on patrol, when they actually had a little time to themselves away from her family and friends.  

"I'm just used to people being a little quieter, okay?"  Or at least to creating quiet if it didn't occur naturally.  "We work a lot in tunnels and they echo."

"Cool."

The silence lasted a good three minutes before Dawn's natural energy bubbled to the surface again.

"So does Connor usually patrol with you?  Because you said you and he don't get along, so I thought maybe not.  But you let him have his own group, and he's not much older than me, so I figured he must know something about fighting.  Unless you're assuming he does because he's a boy, which is just so not fair because after all you know Slayers are always girls and they're like uber-strong and Buffy's the strongest one there is and you know how strong she is so you really shouldn't be thinking Connor is so strong just because he's a boy and I'm a girl."  
  


"That's amazing."  He stared at her in complete bewilderment.  "I don't need to breathe and I don't think I could have gotten that all out without stopping.  How did you do it?"

She shrugged, grateful for the dim streetlights that hid her blush.  "It's a gift."

"That's not what Buffy called it last week," one of the SITs volunteered.  

Angel jumped in quickly.  The past four years refereeing Cordy, Gunn and Wes had taught him a lot about the value of swift and decisive diversions.

"No, Connor doesn't work with us, not usually.  I didn't get to teach him to fight either.  But he, umm, grew up in a very tough place, so he knows how to handle himself."  He looked around at the quiet, shadowy streets.  "I hope," he added under his breath.

"Last night... when you introduced him... you said he grew up in a hell dimension."  Dawn stopped for a moment to recall his exact wording.  "At least I think that's what you said.  Was it like the one you went to?  Or like the one Buffy was in?"

"I don't know," Angel admitted with some surprise.  "We've never actually discussed it.  Connor and I," he added for clarification.  "Or Buffy and I, now that I think about it."

It wasn't that he hadn't wanted to talk about it, with either of them.  It just seemed arrogant in some way, like he could claim to truly understand the torments they, innocent victims, had suffered in a place where he had so richly deserved to be.

"Yeah, Buffy doesn't talk about a lot of stuff anymore.  I mean she talks," Dawn amended quickly, "but not about real stuff.  Important stuff.  It's usually just 'go-forth-and-die' speeches.  Or telling me I should do my homework."

"Homework is important," Angel commented absently.  His own observations, added to Willow's warnings and Dawn's experiences, were adding up to a very disturbing image of the new Buffy Summers.

"Well, yeah, but still..." Dawn sighed.  "Anyway, maybe now that you're here she'll start talking to me again.  I try to make her, just like Xander does, but it's really hard.  We wouldn't have even known what Spike tried to do if Xander hadn't seen the bru..."

Dawn stopped herself just an instant before the last word was all the way out of her mouth, but it was still too late.  Angel stopped dead in his tracks... a thought that almost prompted a nervous giggle, except she was too nervous to giggle... and grabbed her arm.

"What do you mean 'what Spike tried to do'?  Did he hurt her?"

She shrank back from the burning intensity of his dark eyes.  His face floated, ghostly white, above the black leather collar of his coat, his mouth set in a thin line barely covering the fangs fighting to appear.  His hand on her arm was tight to the point of bruising.

"You're hurting me," she said quietly, emphasizing his part in the pain chain.

Instantly he released her, but the tension in his body didn't relax even a fraction.  His voice, when he collected himself enough to speak, was very precise and frighteningly controlled.

"What did Spike do?"

* * * * *

 "The most important part of hunting vampires, or any demons for that matter, is to be constantly aware of your opponent's body.  You must focus simultaneously on all extensions, so that you may anticipate an attack from any direction."

Spike closed his eyes for a minute, hoping to shut out the Watcher's endless drone of useless advice.  On and on the man went, with scarcely a pause for a breath, and no attention paid to his surroundings.  Spike didn't know how the Future Slayers Club of America felt, but he was bored as hell.  The only saving grace was that Wesley had absolutely no interest in him.

And that left Spike an opening.  He hoped.

Rona was with Faith's group, wherever they might be.  He and Wesley had taken their little troupe out before Faith and Anya, but Spike had made sure to get a good whiff of Rona's scent on his way out.  He could track her, or the Second Slayer for that matter, anywhere in the city.  From there it was just a matter of luring her away from her bodyguard, and from what he'd seen of Faith's attention span, that shouldn't be too hard.

Once he got away from Wesley, that is.  

"What's that?" he asked, trying to sound suspicious.  He pointed to an alley between two deserted warehouses.  "I thought I saw something."

Wesley's face registered every bit of the suspicion that Spike was trying to project.  "Are you sure it wasn't just a shadow?" he asked dryly.  "I saw nothing myself."  He turned to the SITs.  "Ladies, did you see anything?"

There was a round of shaken heads as the SITs registered complete obliviousness to Spike's imaginary demon.

"I'm the one who's stronger than a locomotive, remember?  Able to leap tall buildings in a single...blah, blah, blah.  You get my meaning."

"My, my, don't we think highly of ourselves," Wesley murmured.  "I suppose you can outrun a speeding bullet as well?  Mm, well, not that it would help anyway."

Spike scowled at the Watcher as he pointed to his chest.  "The point is I'm better than you at this.  I have eyes that can see things you'll only hide from in your nightmares."

Wesley rolled his eyes at Spike's dramatic pronouncement.  "Fine.  We'll go investigate."

"No."  Spike put his hand out in front of the Watcher.  "I'll suss it out first.  If it's a Bringer it'll only muck things up to have so many people in there trying to catch it."

"We're supposed to stay together," Wesley reminded him.  "Safety in numbers, one for all and all for one... you know the clichés."  He smiled tightly.  "And what if you should die... as we all hope you won't, of course.  How ever would the girls and I find our way back?"

"Stop; you're making me go all gooey inside."  

"We're supposed to stay together," Wesley repeated firmly.

"And I'm supposed to bring one of these Bringers down," Spike countered.  "Buffy's depending on me.  Seems like pretty much the whole world is, and I'm not going to let it down."

"Very commendable," Wesley drawled.  "I can see you've taken your soul to heart."

Spike drew himself up to his full height and majestically straightened his leather duster.  "Think what you like, Watcher," he sneered.  "But I've got a job to do and I'm going to go do it."

Wesley gave in, or at least he seemed to.  "Very well; we'll simply wait here for you."  He tapped his wristwatch.  "Counting the lonely minutes until your return."

"Sod off," Spike grumbled, stalking off in the direction of the dark alley.

Once in the alley, and out of sight, he broke into a run.

* * * * *

Xander checked his watch, and then checked his surroundings.  They weren't too far from the Magick Box, which had been the part of the plan he hadn't mentioned to his arrogant guest.  Connor wasn't happy with having to have a tour guide, particularly one Daddy Dearest had chosen for him.  Once they exhausted Xander's meager Angelus stories, the kid couldn't wait to get rid of him, and that suited Xander just fine.  

Anya was talking crazy again, looking to magick to solve her financial woes.  Xander had thought her dip in the fraternity bloodbath would have left a lasting impression about the bads of hocus-pocus power, but apparently Anya had bounced right back.  He didn't know where the idea for conjuring up money had come from; she refused to tell him after her initial slip in the car tonight on the way to Buffy's.  All he did know for sure was that she was in over her head, as usual.

"Connor, old buddy, old pal, hate to bond and run, but I need to cut out for a while.  Maybe a long while."  He considered Anya, and the difficulty in persuading her not to do something she'd already decided was perfectly sane and reasonable.  Then he considered the additional impact of her project seeming safe, reasonable and profitable.  "Maybe all night," he amended with a sigh.  "I have a friend in trouble and... well, it's a long story."

For an instant a look of fear passed over the younger boy's face.  His wide eyes took in his alien surroundings, searching for escape routes and booby traps, as his mind rapidly calculated odds for survival alone in a presumably hostile environment.  

Then reality coldly reasserted itself.  Alone and abandoned; it was the story of Connor's life.  Why should tonight be any different?

"Go."  He dismissed Xander with an imperious wave of his hand.  "We'll find our own way back."

"Already covered," Xander assured him.  "Amanda's from Sunnydale, born and bred and still alive to tell the tale."  He motioned the SIT to step forward and take his place at Connor's side.  "She'll be your new bird dog."

Connor looked the girl up and down, trying to look as in control of the situation as Angel or Gunn always looked when confronted with a strange girl.  If they could pretend to be comfortable around the opposite sex when they so obviously knew nothing about them, then so could Connor.

"Fine," he said abruptly.  "Let's go."

Xander watched them go with mixed feelings.  He wasn't sorry to see the last of that sneering kid for the night, but he felt guilty about abandoning his post.  The only thing that made him start towards the Magick Box was the certainty of Buffy's anger if she knew what Anya was playing at.  The things he did for love, or something like it.

More to the point, what thing was Spike doing all by his lonesome that sent him down the alley up the street, at least a mile away from the harbor he was supposed to be patrolling?

* * * * *

To Be Continued 


	5. Chapter 5

Dead End Part 5 By Gem 

Angel was doing his best to remain calm.  Dawn's words, and the fact that she stopped herself from finishing them, had prompted some very ugly images in his head.  But he couldn't afford to lose control, not if he wanted to get any more information out of her.  He had to hold on to the thought that whatever Spike had done to Buffy, she was still alive and reasonably whole.  

"Just tell me what Spike did."

His teeth were grinding together; Dawn could hear them in the otherwise perfect silence.  Normally there would be urban bedlam to cover the sound; screeching tires, police sirens, maybe even a scream for help that would divert Angel's attention.  Tonight... no such luck.

"I didn't mean anything," she quickly protested.  "I was just babbling... that's what I do.  Buffy sometimes jokes that I got it from her, from when the monks took her blood to make me.  Like it was some sort of gene thing or..."

He swallowed hard and tried again.  "Dawn, please.  This is important."

"I know it is," she responded earnestly.  "Just because I babble doesn't mean I think you do.  I know you don't; when you talk it's because you have something to say.  But me..." She shrugged and smiled weakly.  "I babble."

"You weren't babbling.  You meant something; I could tell."

She gave up trying to evade his question, but that didn't mean she had to answer it.  

"I think you should ask Buffy."

It was an admission that there was something to tell, and that by itself was progress.  But it still wasn't enough for Angel.

"I'm asking you."

"And I'm telling you to ask her."  She shook her head stubbornly.  "I can't tell you.  She'd never forgive me if I did, and even if she would forgive me... it wouldn't be right.  If she wants you to know, she'll have to tell you herself."

"This isn't a game.  If Spike did something to Buffy... if he hurt her... I need to know.  I've known him a lot longer than any of you, and I know him better."  He leaned in, his voice dropping to a strained growl as he remembered just how well he did know Spike and his habits.  "I can control him, Dawn, if you just tell me what he did."

Dawn wanted so much to believe that Angel could fix things.  As angry as she was at Spike, a part of her remembered and missed the way he used to be in the days before her mother died and the world slipped off its axis.  Spike being a vampire seemed like a joke back then; no one was ever scared of him, not like they were of Angelus or Drusilla.  But when Willow brought Buffy back to life the old Spike died, and the new one frightened Dawn.  She was pretty sure he even scared Buffy, and that wigged Dawn more than anything.  

All she wanted was for things to be normal again, or as close to it as she could get when the world was about to end.  Unfortunately she no longer believed one person could make that kind of difference.  Save the world, sure.  But save her world?  No one had that kind of superpower.

"He didn't _do anything," Dawn heard herself saying.  "He _tried_ to do something and Buffy stopped him.  But what he tried to do..." she shook her head, "you have to ask her about that.  If she wants you to know, she'll tell you.  But if she doesn't..." Dawn clutched the vampire's arm, "Angel, please don't push her.  Buffy gets pushed around by everybody else; don't you do it too."_

He opened his mouth, to argue, to agree... she'd never know which.  Before he could say a word another voice greeted them, another set of issues were flung into the mix, as though things weren't messy enough already.

"Miss Summers, shouldn't you be home studying for Mrs. Allen's biology test?"  

* * * * *

It was a calm, clear spring night, the perfect kind of night to take a leisurely stroll.  No vampires, no Bringers, no demons of any kind were searching for greener pastures or redder blood, at least not in the municipal parks of Sunnydale.  

Rona had never been so bored, or frustrated, in her entire life.  

She wanted to show Faith what she could do, to impress upon the Slayer that she could be useful to her.  In turn, Rona was sure she could make Faith realize that she was needed here in Sunnydale as more than just 'the other Slayer.'  The SITs needed a leader, a real leader, someone willing to focus on them and their part in the battle rather than what a certain blond vampire could do for her.  In Rona's book, Faith was their best hope for survival.

But in order for all of this to come to pass, she needed a kill.  And it didn't look like there was going to be one anytime soon, especially not with all the noise Anya was making.

"I'm happy to help save the world and all, but can't we do it faster?" Anya complained, not for the first time that night.  "This isn't my career, you know."

Faith was rapidly losing what little patience she had, thanks to Anya and her 'helpful' suggestions.  She was a slayer; her life was supposed to suck.  Homicidal demons, an early, bloody death, and even the end of the world were all part of the deal.  But no one ever said anything about having to be nice to a friend's ex's friend's ex.

Now Faith knew why.

"Just what is your career, Anya?  Can you make any money at this whining and complaining thing?  Because you're really good at it."

Anya stared at her in amazement.  _Faith didn't know?  _

"I run a magick shop, or I will once I get it open again."  She tried to check her watch but didn't have much luck reading it, the city's idea of adequate park lighting not being conducive to actually seeing anything in detail.  "That's why I need to go.  I have to meet someone."  Suddenly Anya remembered what her cover story was supposed to have been.  "And, umm, I have a headache."

Rona started to back up, edging towards the surrounding shrubbery.  If she could have just a few minutes to herself she was sure she could nail some sort of demon, and then Faith would have to take notice of her and the general SIT situation.  All that was needed was a little quiet and stealth, neither of which was possible within a 500-foot radius of Anya.

"So you made your date and then showed up at Buffy's begging to go on patrol?"  Faith tossed her axe from one hand to the other and impatiently tapped her boot heel on the tarmac path.  "Why did you bother to show at all?"

"It's not a date... and patrol normally doesn't take this long."  Anya was starting to feel a little guilty for abandoning Faith, but the Slayer's unsympathetic attitude was keeping that feeling from overwhelming her.  "Buffy's usually killed something or sent me home by now."

Rona ducked behind a bush and broke into a run.  

Faith leaned against the faulty streetlamp with a deceptively casual air.  "Well, sorry I can't offer you a kill right this second... though I gotta say it's tempting."

"Then I can go?"

"I suppose we can..." Faith looked over at the three SITs, and then did a double take.  Two SITs.  She had started out with three, and now there were two.  She straightened up and glanced around the immediate area, looking for signs of a figure in the shadows.

"I may have missed a lot of school, but I know I can count to three.  Who are we missing?" she asked the taller SIT.

Anya threw a quick dismissive glance at the two young girls.  "Rona.  Now can I go?" 

"She's missing, Anya."  Faith spoke slowly, as one slow-starting conscience to another.  "A missing teenage girl.  In Sunnydale.  At night.  Don't you think we should look for her?"

Anya felt another twinge of guilt, but she firmly pushed it to the side.  When she got her shop going again she would be able to help out a lot more than she ever could wandering around the park looking for a runaway SIT.

"She's Rona, Faith.  She lives to disrupt things; just ask Buffy."  She gestured to the two remaining girls.  "Ask them."

"Qu'avez-vous dit?" the new Canadian SIT asked brightly, glancing from Faith to Anya.  "Pas chacun dans le monde parle anglais, vous savez."

"Okay, so ask Buffy."  Anya started edging backward.  "But until you do, can I go?  I'm sure Rona will turn up when she thinks she's been missed enough."

"Go."  Faith waved her away; at this moment Anya was more headache than help.  "I'm going to call Lorne and let him know we might have a problem."

* * * * *

"Principal Wood."  Dawn gulped as she looked from the cold eyes of Buffy's boss to the agitated expression on the face of Buffy's biggest secret from her boss.  "Angel, this is, umm, Principal... Mr. Wood.  Buffy's boss.  Mr. Wood, this is Angel, Buffy's, umm... well... "

"I think that pretty well says it," Angel interjected, pulling himself together with visible effort.  "It's nice to meet you."

He extended his hand to shake Wood's, and dropped it a minute later.  It was obvious from the man's expression that Wood had no intention of soiling his skin by contact.

"So you're Angel."  

"You've heard of me."  It wasn't a question; Angel could see recognition in the man's eyes.

"Not until today."  Robin eyed him coldly, trying to take measure of the vampire in the light available.  "And then not much."

"Why am I not sure if that's an insult or a compliment?"

"I'm supposed to pretend you don't exist, walk the other way if I see you in the street."  His upper lip curled into a sneer he couldn't suppress, and didn't want to.  "She's protecting you."

A part of Angel was absurdly pleased that Buffy cared enough to protect him, but the old familiar feelings of inadequacy clawed at him.  She was protecting him because he was a vampire, because he would never fit into the rest of her world.

"Protecting me from you?  Why?"

Dawn raised her hand.  "Principal Wood... he, umm, really doesn't like vampires," she explained.  "Even vampires with souls."

"Most people don't."  Angel shrugged.  "I try not to take it personally."

There was something about this vampire's attitude that annoyed Robin even more than Spike's brashness.  He was too calm, too used to being the one in control.  Robin had an urge to shake him up and see how many pieces he broke into.

"My mother was a Slayer," he said flatly.  "Buffy's pet vampire killed her when I was a child."  The scene played out again in mind, as it had thousands upon thousands of time in the intervening years.  Every time he hoped the ending would change, but it never did.  "Then he stole the coat from her dead body and just... walked away.  Laughing."

"Coat?" Dawn asked.  She was surprised at how tiny her voice sounded against the suddenly dead air, but she was afraid to repeat the question any louder.  Asking might get her answers.

"I'm sorry," the vampire said hoarsely.  "I didn't...," he looked helplessly at Dawn, "no one said any...I've, uh, been forgetting things lately but not..." he gave up fighting for the words to make it all better and repeated, "I'm sorry."  

Angel knew Robin had only intended to strike at his masculine pride, to rub his nose in being replaced.  But there was no room for jealousy in a mind fighting with the concept that Spike killed this man's mother_.  Spike who would have been dead himself a hundred years or more before that Slayer was born, were it not for Drusilla... and Angel._

It didn't matter how much time passed or how many lives he'd saved, he could never restore the ones lost because of him any more than he could outrun the guilt they called down upon him.  Even those he couldn't remember from his last attack of Angelus haunted him with their faceless, nameless judgments.  And now just looking at this man, imagining his mother and how young she must have been when she died, imagining Buffy someday in a similar position, trying to balance sacred duty and family...

_A family like this man's?_

Suddenly the image of Buffy's future he had alternately cherished and cursed, the one he had made more sacrifices for than he would ever let her know, seemed childish and impossible.  Angel's guilt gave way to anger.

"So you didn't know?"  Robin cocked his head and frowned.  "Buffy was sure someone would have told you at least some of it."

Dawn forced her open mouth to close; Angel wasn't the only one who didn't know about Spike and the principal's mother.  But she couldn't think about that now.  Buffy would want her to get Angel out of this as quickly as possible, before Mr. Wood had a chance to send him too far down Brood Street.

"There hasn't been time," she said quickly, as though she had been part of the decision.  "Angel hasn't been home in a long time; we're still way not done with the catching up."  

She regretted her words an instant later when Angel's eyes told her one of the things yet to be fully caught up was her slip of the lip about Spike.

"Seems like she's been hiding things from both of us," Angel drawled.  Actually it was the things he had been hiding from himself that bothered him now, but regret was a dish he preferred to savor privately.  

Robin's voice snapped back like a whip.  "Don't compare yourself to me."

"I wasn't.  But there is a tie between us, whether you like it or not."  He grappled with the words for a moment, weighing the damage the truth would inflict against the burden it placed on all of them, particularly Buffy, to keep the secret.  "Actually 'ties' would be a better way to put it."

"What are you talking about?"

"Angel." Dawn grabbed his sleeve, "I think we should go now.  We, uh, we're not going to find any Bringers standing around here jabbering, right?"

"Just a second, Dawn."  Robin waved away her concern and focused on Angel.  "Buffy is a tie, but what else?"

Dawn pointed between the two men.  "How about the Turok-Han that's coming to attack us?  Does that qualify?"

She'd never been so relieved to see a giant killer demon in all her life.

"Turok...?" Angel followed the direction of Dawn's finger.  "Shit!"  Suddenly he remembered the tender age of his companions and the manners his mother had wasted countless hours drilling into his uncaring human self rose to the fore.  "Girls, I'm sorry, I forgot you were..."

"No!"  Dawn stamped her foot.  "Kill now!  Sorry later!"

"Right."  He assumed a defensive position, blocking Dawn and the three SITs from the uber-vamp who was almost upon them.  "Sure.  Not a problem."  Under his breath, Angel muttered, "If there were three of me."

* * * * *

Lorne turned over on Buffy's narrow sofa, poised for an instant on the edge and then plummeted to the floor.  Still he slept, lost in dreams of the career he should have had in Vegas, the career he would have had if his gifts hadn't been a little too obvious and exploitable.

Upstairs, Andrew tapped away on Willow's purloined laptop, chatting with a girl from Sweden who thought he was a successful neurosurgeon and weekend deep-sea fisherman.  Briefly he wondered if trout really swam far enough out into the ocean to be considered "deep sea" fish, but he didn't stress about it.  Ingeborg didn't seem all that interested in the fishing part; it was the brain surgery that turned her on, and he was sure he could fake expertise in that area.  He watched 'ER;' how tough could it be?  

In the kitchen the telephone rang.

Andrew paused, frowning.  How should he answer Ingeborg's question about what he liked best about his job?  It had to be something suitably serious... he was supposed to be a doctor, after all... but it also had to sound kind of sexy and make her smile.  _What would George Clooney say?_

The telephone rang again.

And again.  

And again.

* * * * *

"Okay, we' re not getting anywhere with this phone tree idea."  Faith flipped the phone shut with disgust and jammed the clip onto her belt.  Here she was trying to be good and play by Angel's rules, and one of Buffy's little helpers was queering her deal.  Someone was going to pay for this.

"We need to start looking for Rona ourselves.  Once we have her... and I've made her see the error of her ways in pissing me off... we'll go back to hunting bad guys."

* * * * *

Spike slipped quietly through Sunnydale's labyrinth of deserted alleys and abandoned warehouses, searching for Rona's elusive scent.  He hadn't formulated a plan yet for what to do when he found her, but he really wasn't worried about that.  He was used to thinking on his feet; something would come to him.  But first he had to find her.  Where in the world could Faith have taken the girl?  

A sudden change in the wind brought him an equally sudden change in his luck.  Rona was near, and yet... another sniff... Faith was not.  Feeling just a little like a hound on the trail of a fox, he tilted his head back and inhaled deeply through his nose.  

There.  That was it.  Down at the end of this alley, maybe a few hundred yards at best, a certain naughty little slayer wannabe was waiting for him.  Oh, she didn't know he was the one she was expecting, of course, but their meeting was meant to be just the same.  It had to be, for Buffy's sake.

Buffy worried a lot about 'doing the right thing'; it was a trait he had learned to accept in her as a part of the Slayer heritage she could not escape.  But as he strode down the alley in search of his prey, Spike carried no such burden.  He did what was necessary and he did it for Buffy, whether she wanted him to or not.  Sooner or later, she'd realize he knew best.

* * * * *

For the eighth time in the last 15 minutes, Wesley checked the luminous dial on his watch.  Unfortunately it told him nothing more than the last seven times.  Seconds continued to turn into minutes and still no sign of Spike.  

"All right, let's go.  Whatever he's up to, it's sure to be far away from here."  He looked around the quiet harbor one last time, trying to envision where it lay in relation to the town and trouble Spike could get into.  He should have known this was a set-up.  "This was no place to search for a Bringer anyway," he muttered in disgust.  "They prefer to live underground."

"Underground?"  Molly looked down at the asphalt beneath her sneakers.  Her new white expensive sneakers.  "You're talking sewers, aren't you?  I don't do sewers."  She looked to the other two SITs to rally support.  "We don't do sewers."

Wesley had little intention of venturing into the sewers, at least not until he'd accomplished another, more pressing, task.  But Molly's words reminded him these girls still had a long way to go before they were equipped to handle the future so rapidly approaching them.

"Think of them as tunnels," he suggested.  "This town hosts an inordinate number of them; that's part of the reason vampires gained such a foothold here over the years."

"Well, hey, if it's good enough for vampires..."  

"Don't laugh, Molly.  One of the most important skills you'll need to cultivate is drawing parallels between one demon's behavior and another's.  You should learn about their cultures, their histories..."  He could tell from the slightly glazed looks in the girls' eyes that he was losing them, so he tried another tack.  "They're not cartoon characters or cardboard cutouts, you know.  They have lives, even families."

"Families?" the latest recruit asked doubtfully.

"Possibly evil families," he allowed, "but families nonetheless."

Since the moment Wesley and Angel had been introduced, Molly had been dying to know how they could have become friends.  A Watcher and a vampire?  And now here was the perfect chance to find out.

"You mean like Angel and Connor."

"No I don't, actually."  Wesley turned and began walking away from the harbor, trusting the SITs to follow him.  "Connor isn't a demon at all, only an unusually strong human being.  And Angel is a separate entity from the demon inside of him.  If you ever met Angelus... which I sincerely hope you never do... you'd realize that in an instant."

Molly hurried to catch up.  "Did you?"

It was a simple question, but Wesley couldn't begin to tell her how complicated the answer was.  

For so long after Connor's kidnapping Wesley had told himself he was protecting Angel by not telling him of the prophecy.  Meeting the real Angelus however, not just a drug-induced facsimile, had finally made the Watcher acknowledge what Angel was trying to tell him the night he wound his hands around Wesley's throat and squeezed:  No matter how many times he called the vampire his friend, when the moment of decision arrived Wesley had looked at Angel... and seen Angelus.  

But just as Angelus' rebirth had taught Wesley about the past, Lilah's death pointed him towards the future.  With all that the lawyer had done to him over the past 4 years, including feeding him his own child's blood, it really wouldn't have been so hard to forgive Angel for striking back.  Yet it was Angelus who had killed her, within minutes of gaining his freedom, and for nothing more than a snack and a little psychological warfare. 

"I said drawing parallels is one of the most important skills to cultivate.  _The_ most important... is learning from your mistakes."

* * * * *

The attackers had come out of nowhere.  Connor had spent so much time scouring the streets for signs of vampires, focusing all his senses on rooting out the demonic.  Then when evil came, it was in human form.

He had never been mugged before, and though the two masked men didn't frighten him, they did confuse him with their demands.  But the SITs weren't at all disconcerted; in fact they seemed almost gleeful.  In the end Connor had to physically pull them off of their two would-be assailants before they attracted too much attention.

He didn't understand girls like this.  Women, according to Holtz, were fragile creatures, weak and easily misled.  Cordelia and Fred had somewhat reshaped this impression, but they did not shatter it.  He knew they fought because it was necessary, not because they enjoyed it.  Essentially he saw them as nurturers.

But these girls... from Buffy and Faith on down to the one only his father could talk to... they were wild.  They fought on the side of good, but it didn't seem like they needed much reason for that fight.  They exalted in their power and they got as much satisfaction from victory as he did, maybe more.  He didn't understand it at all, and more than anything he didn't understand why he liked it, and them, so much.  This wasn't anything Holtz had ever taught him to expect.  

Worse yet, Angel seemed to fit right in.  He obviously found these girls as appealing as Connor, and he seemed to understand them in a way his son could only envy.

For the first time in his life, Connor wondered if he'd inherited anything from his real father besides his evil impulses.  And was he betraying everything he'd been raised to believe if he hoped the answer was yes?

* * * * *

"You're kidding, right?"  Buffy slammed the stake home and turned to glare down at Fred before the wind picked up the first flake of vampire dust.  "Connor actually left Angel at the bottom of the ocean for three months?  Why the hell didn't someone call me?"

"We..."

The Slayer reached down and grabbed Fred's hand, easily pulling the other girl to her feet.  "He was missing for three whole months and nobody called me?"

Fred smiled apologetically as she dusted herself off.  "We, umm, we didn't know you'd care."

Buffy could feel her mouth opening, and she could hear the choked sounds issuing from her throat, but she couldn't get them to simulate words; she was in too deep of a state of shock.  They thought she wouldn't care?  About Angel?

"You never visited," Fred continued.  Her quiet words, voiced with no hint of condemnation, still penetrated the thick fog in Buffy's brain like so many stakes to her soul.  "Or called.  Even when you came back from, umm, well, you know..."

"The dead," Buffy snapped.  "As in way outside the LA area code."

"Buffy," one of the SITs said hesitantly, "I think there's another..."

The Slayer made a face and signaled the girl to be silent.  She needed to hear Fred's excuses in full before she made mincemeat out of them.

"Anyway you weren't the one who called Angel to say 'hey, guess who's not dead?'.  That was Willow."  

"Do you have any idea how hard it is to find a good segue to that kind of news bulletin?" Buffy challenged her.  "And it's not like Angel was running down to Sunnydale every other weekend either."

"I know," Fred said quickly.  "That was another reason we thought he wouldn't want us to call.    Maybe if Cordelia had been there, or if we were talking to Wesley back then... well, they knew you.  Know you.  You and Angel.  Together."  

She bit her lip, frustrated almost to the point of tears with her inability to express herself coherently.  She didn't want to be responsible for sabotaging Angel's happiness the way she'd done with her own.  

"They would've known to call you, but Charles and I... we'd never even met you."

"That's not my fault!" Buffy wanted to shout.  But she didn't.  She closed her mind to the hurt and the anger and especially to the guilty little voice that whispered maybe some of it was her fault.  So phone lines ran both ways, and Angel had made one or two moves to show he wasn't ready to completely break the ties between them.  Those were 'maybe' things.  Facts were what counted now.

"You weren't talking to Wesley?  What gives?"  Her eyes narrowed.  "I think you skipped something."  

"Wesley, umm, wasn't really a part of the group for a while."  Fred flushed miserably; she had left out the details of Connor's kidnapping for a reason, but she couldn't outright lie to Buffy.  "You see there was this demon and this prophecy about Connor and... well, it's really long and involved."

The SIT tried once again to attract Buffy's attention, this time waving her arms like a semaphore as she said, "Buffy, I really think you need to see..."

"In a minute."  Turning back to Fred, Buffy made a circular gesture with her hand.  "Fast forward to the part where Wesley didn't notice Angel was missing for three months."   

"Oh Wesley noticed."  Fred wasted no time in reassuring her on that point; there was enough bad feelings floating around without her adding to them.  "He was the one who rescued Angel."

"Buffy!" the SIT whined.

"Oh, all right!" Buffy snapped.  

The Slayer spun on her heel, seizing a sword from the SITs hand as she turned.  One clean, quick stroke later the head of the Krell demon she'd felt stalking them for the past half-hour was on the opposite side of a tombstone from his body, and Buffy was once again facing Fred.

"So Wesley rescued Angel but..." she prompted.

Fred's mouth worked silently for a moment as she tried to move her mind forward in time from the instant Buffy had casually beheaded a demon to this moment so very few seconds later.  The Slayer looked impatient however and Fred was not inclined to get on her bad side, at least not when she still had the sword in her hand.

"But..." Fred drew a deep breath, "he was also the one who kidnapped Connor for Holtz... you know who Holtz is, don't you?"  At Buffy's jerky nod, she continued, "He was tricked; he never would have done it if he hadn't believed it would save Connor's life.  There was this phony prophecy... and there was this real one too that the demon wanted not to come true.  So he made up the phony one and he tricked Wesley into believing it and..."

Buffy held up her hand to stem the torrent of words spilling from Fred's lips.  Words that should have come from Angel, but she was beginning to understand why they hadn't.  However angry he was with Wesley, Angel would still have seen the betrayal as his just punishment for Angelus, and as yet another way his sins were being visited upon those he loved.

"And he stole Connor from Angel and handed him over to Angel's enemy, who took him to hell.  That part I know."

"I think he was going to keep Connor with him; I really do."  She and Charles had disagreed on this point, but Fred was sure Wesley couldn't have honestly believed Connor would be better off with Holtz than any of them.  "But then Holtz had this accomplice... this awful girl named Justine who hated vampires... not that that's what made her awful, but, well, she tried to kill Wesley and took Connor and gave him to Holtz.  And then Holtz took Connor to Quortoth and we didn't see him again until he was a teenager."

"When he tried to kill Angel because Holtz made it look like Angel killed him."  The Slayer's hands clenched into fists, though she wasn't sure if it was Holtz or Connor she wanted to strike out at.  "And I thought I had father issues."    
  


* * * * *

Spike stepped back and brushed his hands on the swinging lengths of his leather duster.  He'd thought he might be a little rusty at this – it had been a while since he killed anyone without Buffy's sweet voice in his ear offering encouragement and praise.  But he'd done well, quick and silent and no sign of a vampire attack.  Not that he wouldn't have gotten a certain satisfaction from draining the little bint of her traitor's blood, but he couldn't risk anyone being able to link it to him or anyone remotely like him.  Let alone the problems it would cause if he showed up back at Buffy's with human blood on his breath.  Angel would sniff that out in an instant.

Sniff.  Smell.  Scent.

Spike felt a sudden surge of panic flood his ice-cold veins.  _Scent.  Angel was going to recognize the smell of the chit on him, or at least realize it came from a terrified female.  And his goody-goody sire would be sure to rat him out to Buffy, the real Buffy, who wouldn't be as understanding as her evil twin about the enormous favor Spike had just done her.  He'd saved her ass... again... but all Buffy would see at this point was that Spike had killed someone and Angel hadn't.  Souled Spike killed someone and Souled Angel didn't.  Once again his loser of a sire would win by doing nothing but standing around in his leather coat looking depressed while Spike did all the dirty work._

_Women_, Spike grumbled to himself.  _You can kill 'em, but you can't kill for 'em.  You just can't win._

Unless... unless he got rid of the scent.  The docks.  The harbor.  He was supposed to be there anyway; why not just say the demon he'd been chasing dove into the water and he followed it?  Or maybe the beast pushed him, having seen one too many vampire movies where the undead couldn't swim or were afraid of water.  Either excuse would work; he just had to pick one and stick with it.

But first, he had to get his ass back to the docks where the Watcher drone was waiting for him.

* * * * *

At first Angel had fought the Turok-Han by himself, and while he hadn't been an overwhelming success he was at least holding his own.  But a sucker punch that sent him reeling into Chao Ahn reminded him of the other purpose in this patrol.  He wasn't just out here to fight demons or capture demons, but to train others to do so as well.  That meant he couldn't keep all the fun for himself.

He straightened up and shot a quick glance at Chao Ahn to make sure she was unhurt.  Then he stepped back as the Turok-Han surged forward.

"Ladies," he made a sweeping gesture with one hand, "time to go to work.  He's all yours."

The four girls shared quick, nervous glances and then training, if not yet slayer powers, took over and the battle commenced.

"You can't be serious?" Robin protested.  "They're children!"  He started to wade into the fray, but Angel grabbed his arm and pulled him back so hard he staggered and almost fell.

"Do not," the vampire growled, "get in my line of sight."  Without ever taking his eyes off the Turok-Han, he continued, "They have to learn to fight and this is the best way."

"They're going to get killed!"

"Someday," Angel agreed grimly, "but not tonight." 

"So you're just going to sit here and..."

The Turok-Han's lip curled back, exposing very long and very sharp fangs.  

"Hold that thought," Angel told Robin just before he flung his body between Chao Ahn and the teeth with her name on them.

* * * * *

Xander ran around the corner, sure he'd caught up with Spike at last, and then slowly came to a stop when he realized he was alone in the alley.  Damn!  Whoever he'd seen had given him the slip, either by ducking into another alley or maybe into one of the surrounding buildings.  Or maybe Spike hadn't come this way after all and Xander had just been chasing shadows.

He gave the alley one last disgusted sweep with his eyes and then shuffled back to the main drag.  He could still try and intercept Anya from playing out her get-rich-quick fantasies, assuming she hadn't already abbra'd her cadabra.  If that were the case she'd be sure to leave him a gloating message on the answering machine at Buffy's house.  

Otherwise she'd be at home, nursing her wounds (hopefully only metaphorical ones), and his best course of action would be to let her alone until she got over the case of the nasties she was sure to develop in the face of lost income.  An impoverished Anya, spurned by magick, was not an entity to be tangled with.

No, given the time his best bet would be to track down Connor and his merry band of SITs and see what help he could offer them.  Anya was beyond his help for the moment, maybe forever, and it was about time he admitted it.

* * * * *

"It was so hard on Angel after Connor was kidnapped," Fred said.  "I mean it was horrible enough what happened to his son, but Angel really trusted Wesley.  They were best friends, or at least it seemed like it.  But... Wesley didn't trust him."  Her voice hardened.  "He didn't trust any of us.  After all we'd been through together, he thought we weren't smart enough or strong enough or... something enough... to help protect Connor.  He had to do it alone."  She sighed.  "So he was alone for a long time after that.  Because he chose to be."

"It's not that simple."  Buffy turned her head away to avoid any chance Fred could see her face, or the guilty expression she was sure it sported.  She so did not want to feel sympathy for Wesley on this issue, but she couldn't help it.  "Wesley was wrong; no question.  But sometimes you do things and you just have to hope you're doing the right thing and that people will understand later."

"Well sure, that works great if you're the only who's going to pay if you get it wrong," Fred pointed out bitterly.  "But how often does that happen?"  Before Buffy could reply, she added, "Maybe I shouldn't have told you all this... maybe Angel wanted to tell you himself, or maybe not at all.  But it sounds like... well, with the questions you were asking and the way you asked them... it sounded like you wanted to make things better between Angel and Connor and I just thought you should know what you're up against."

Was that what she really wanted to do?  Buffy was caught short by Fred's assumption.  She had a world to save, and a sister to raise, and slayers to train and a bunch of students to get through final exams; she didn't have any energy or time to spare for repairing Angel's family ties.  She didn't even get along with her own father, so what did she know about helping Connor deal with his?

All she did know was the look she saw in Angel's eyes when he thought no one was watching him watch his son.  He'd never really talked about children with her; even if she hadn't been way too young when they were together, it still wasn't something they had thought would ever be a possibility.  But she didn't need to hear the words to know how badly he wanted to be a good father.  Now she had to decide if it was worth risking everything she had worked for on the off chance she could help him forge ties to his child, a child that wasn't even hers.  

"I... I don't know that Angel would accept any help from me," she hedged, stalling for time.  "It's not like he's asked for it before."

"I guess you're kind of even on that score," Fred offered, a shy smile tickling the edges of her mouth.  "Maybe it's time you make him accept help like he's making you."

"And it's not like I've ever not offered when I knew he needed help," the Slayer said slowly, trying to sound Fred out on a very important piece of information.  "I mean I would have looked for him when he was missing if I'd known... he must know that."

Fred was silent, forcing Buffy to ask the question she'd been trying to finesse out of her companion.

"He does know that, right?  That I didn't know he was missing?  He doesn't think I..."

"He knows.  I think he knows you'd never refuse to help him.  I just... " Fred paused, trying to find the right words, "I just don't think he's sure why anymore."

* * * * *

Cordelia pushed the back door open just an inch or so and took a cautious peek outside before she exited the Magick Box.  She wasn't afraid of being attacked; she could take care of herself, and a lot better than she led them to believe at the moment.  But she didn't want them to know what she had done, or rather that she was the one who had done it.  Not yet, anyway.  For her plan to work they had to be so busy blaming each other for every little thing they had no time to notice what poor pregnant Cordy was up to.

The key to this game was smoke and mirrors.  And fortunately some of the players couldn't even see themselves in the mirrors, let alone her.

* * * * *

"Wesley!  Wesley, wait up!"

The Watcher stopped and turned in the direction of the hail, waiting with something less than perfect patience for Xander to catch up.

"Whew!" Xander huffed as he came to a stop next to Wesley.  "I've been looking all over for a familiar face, but since Angel didn't have us filing flight plans who knows where anybody is."  He took a quick glance around to verify his suspicions before he added, "Speaking where's and where not's... where's Spike since he's apparently not with you?"

Wesley's face was impassive, but he couldn't quite control the anxiety in his voice when he replied, "I wish I knew."

"Ruh-ro, George.  I don't like the sound of that."

"No less than I," Wesley admitted.  "He abandoned us shortly after we reached the docks, spinning some sort of tale about a demon only he was quick enough to see."

"And you think he was running some sort of scam?"

"I do.  I don't know what, however."  Wesley had thought of little else since the moment Spike had disappeared, but it was no use.  "I can't even begin to guess."

"I saw him a few blocks from the Magick Box," Xander volunteered.  "At least I thought I did.  I tried to follow him but he gave me the slip."

Wesley frowned at this new bit of information.  This was making less and less sense, and the further they moved away from an identifiable plan the more anxious he became.  

"But that's halfway across town from the harbor, isn't it?  What could he have been doing over there?"  He scratched his chin and tried to reason through Spike's movements that evening.  But thinking like the vampire was harder than he would have anticipated.  "Did he seem to be looking for someone?  Or some _thing_, perhaps?  Or running from something; that's also a possibility."

Xander shrugged and turned up his palms.  "I told you, I lost him... if it even was him."

Wesley turned away.  If he couldn't catch Spike, or figure out what the demon was up to, he really only had one choice left and he needed to act on it quickly.  

"Damn."  

Xander moved around in front of Wesley, blocking the Watcher's quick getaway.  "So where were you headed?  This isn't the way to Buffy's from the harbor."

"I'm looking for Connor."  He glanced over at the SITs and amended his words.  "Correction: we're looking for Connor.  And demons, if we can find some along the way."

Xander looked at him strangely.  "I know why I'm looking for Connor – I kind of ditched him before to take care of something else.  But why are you turning Dick Tracy over the kid?"

Wesley almost didn't tell him; it wasn't as if he believed Xander would be particularly understanding.  But he might need an extra pair of hands, and since Xander was really supposed to be with Connor it seemed only fair to keep him involved.  

"Because I lost track of Spike," he confessed in a low voice.

It took Xander a minute to put the pieces together, but when he did he didn't believe in them.  "Oh come on, you don't think he'd... I mean Connor is Angel's kid.  Do you really think Spike wants to mess with Angel?"

"More to the point, do we want to find out?"

Xander had to think about that one for a minute.  He didn't want a bloodbath in Buffy's living room, that much he did know.  But as for which vampire he would be rooting for when push came to shove... and snap... and stake... he really was torn.  He didn't actually like either of them, and he wasn't too wild about Connor for that matter.

"I admit Buffy's not much of a fear factor for him these days," he hedged, "but isn't there some sort of code with vamps?"

"About not harming their children?" Wesley inquired with a gently lifted eyebrow.

"Good point."  

"I can't risk it," Wesley said decisively.  "Angel is worried about Spike on several levels, but the one I can help with is Connor.  I promised myself I would protect the boy from him."  He slammed his clenched fist against his thigh in frustration; again he had failed Connor.  "And then I let Spike get away because I simply couldn't believe he would be stupid enough to go after Connor when he knew he wouldn't have an alibi."  

"Uh, Wes, little hint here:  never underestimate the stupidity of a demon with a plan."

Spike really would have to be pretty dumb to take on Angel's kid; Xander couldn't get around that point.  It wasn't like Connor was helpless either, or so said Xander's aching shoulder and back.  But once upon a time Buffy had some nice bruises too courtesy of that same vampire, and doing that to a vampire slayer said a whole lot of not so very encouraging things about Spike's physical strength and mental weaknesses.

"Okay," he said at last, "I have to find him anyway so I might as well join your party first.  So where does the son of a bad ass vampire hang out anyway?  Other than alone because he's the only son of a bad ass vampire there is."  Xander paused.  "We think."

"From what I know of Connor, we need to head for the seediest part of town and look for any fights breaking out," Wesley said dryly.  "He seems to have an unerring instinct for finding trouble about to happen...and then giving it the final push."

"Gee, wonder where he got that from?  And hey," he added before Wesley could respond, "why didn't anyone tell me he was the Kamikaze Kid?"

"Perhaps Angel thought you would be a good influence on him," Wesley suggested. 

"Yeah, and Spike is out selling Girl Scout cookies," Xander retorted.  "I know when the 'KICK ME' sign is getting stuck to my back."

"Yes, I'm sure you're familiar with the feeling.  Now," he added briskly, cutting off Xander's reply, "would you be so kind as to point us in the direction of violence, lawlessness and general mayhem?"

"In Sunnydale you can find private to colonel mayhem pretty much anywhere, but the general lives about two blocks from the hellmouth."

Wesley shot him a startled glance as he tried to shuffle through the remnants of his Sunnydale geography lessons.  "The Bronze?"

"Drinks, dancing and death on the menu at least once a week," Xander agreed with a shrug.  "Besides, where else would three sorority slayers go when they have a real live teenage boy in tow?  You know girls; they live to make us guys squirm."

* * * * *

"You know you don't have to walk on the opposite side of the street, Gunn; I don't bite."   Willow glanced sideways at her tall companion, the one who was trying to stay as far away from her footstep retracing powder as he could manage and still be part of the group.  "I won't even spill any more powder on your boots, I promise."

Gunn started; he had been trying so hard to focus on scanning the streets for unfriendlies and thereby keep his mind off of Fred and Wesley and the mess that was his love life that he hadn't even noticed how far from the group he had drifted.  With a sheepish grin he rejoined them, though he still kept a wary eye on the little bottle of silver powder Willow was periodically tipping on its side.

"Sorry, wasn't trying to ditch you or anything."  He didn't want to admit the real reason for his mental wanderings, so he seized the one Willow had given him.  "But hey, that powder doesn't eat through leather or anything, does it?  Cause these were a gift," he extended one booted foot straight out before he set it on the ground for his next step, "and I'm sort of attached to the feet inside too."

"It doesn't destroy anything except a clean getaway, I promise."

Gunn glanced down at the silver sparkling on his toes.  "I was kind of hoping to keep my options open on that score."

Kennedy popped her head in between Willow and Gunn's arms.  "We have some stuff back at Buffy's that'll get that off like...magick," she promised.  "Those boots will look like new."

"They are new," Gunn informed her.  "But I'll try anything to keep from getting a nickname like 'Twinkletoes.'  So what's this anti-fairy dust fairy dust called?"

"Shoe polish," Willow answered with a smile.

Gunn groaned.  "I set myself up for that, didn't I?"

"Sure did," she agreed happily.  "So what's the fight between you and magick anyway?  You're not exactly an insurance salesman; you must have to use it sometimes in your work."

He glanced away, turning his eyes to the surrounding landscape even as his thoughts turned inward.

"It's not the magick I don't like, it's what people can do with it that gives me a bad case of fingernails on the blackboard."

Kennedy, trailing close at Willow's heels, shivered at the image.  "You really don't trust it, do you?"

For just an instant, Gunn saw the portal yawning wide at his feet, Fred on the other side.  He'd killed her professor before she had a chance to sentence him to a living death on Pylea, but in taking the stain onto his own soul, he had ensured the portal between them would never close.

"People aren't meant to have that kind of power," he said finally.  "I've seen some fine things come from it, like the way you were able to give Angel his soul back.  But for most folks... it's too much to handle."

"No argument here," Willow said softly.  

If anyone understood the seductive and insidious, power of magick it was she.  Every time she cast a spell she could feel the pull to do more, go further.  So far she'd resisted because she had to.  But she kept on tempting Fate... because she had to.

"See, when I fight I use my fists, or I use my axe."  He hefted his treasured fighting axe in one hand, admiring the gleam of moonlight on the carefully polished blade.  "But anyone can fight back the same way, and maybe they'll win or maybe I'll win.  It's fair; it's on the level.  But magick... not everybody can make it work for them, and a lot of times they end up paying way more than they get."  The professor's face flashed in front of his eyes again, and then Fred's as he'd first seen her in Pylea.  "Sometimes other folks end up paying just as much."

Warren's screams still echoed in Willow's dreams at night.  He had died by magick, and a part of her could not regret that use of her powers.  But when Warren killed he had used nothing more magickal than a gun, a bullet, and the laws of physics, and Tara was no less dead for it.

"What's the saying?  Magick doesn't kill people; people kill people."

She'd hoped for at least a smile, but it was as though he'd turned to stone.  There was no expression in his eyes, or face or voice when he answered.

"Got that right."

Willow stopped short and rested her hand on Gunn's arm, suddenly concerned that she'd struck a nerve.  All around them the world was trying to grind to a halt, but in this moment it seemed far more important that she reach this one young man, this almost-stranger whose feelings she'd inadvertently scorched.  If she couldn't reach one person when he needed help, maybe the world wasn't really worth saving after all.

"Hey, are you okay?"  

He shook his head, trying to clear away the ghosts, or at least send them back to their corners for another time.  "Been a rough couple of weeks."  He glanced back at the three weary SITs trailing at their heels.  "For all of us, I'm betting."

"Weeks, months, years," she agreed.  "And it's probably not going to get a whole lot better any time soon."

In the distance a scream cut through the deceptively calm night air.

"Ya think?" Gunn asked dryly, and then took off at a run in the direction of the scream, Willow and the SITs close at his heels.

* * * * *

"No, Dawn, don't..." Angel winced, "kick him there.  You're just going to," he sighed as he flung himself around the neck of the lunging Turok-Han, "get him mad."

Dawn scrambled backwards, leaving room for the enraged demon to try and shake Angel off of his back.  The vampire hung on with all his might, however, despite the fact that it was a fairly embarrassing position with little tactical advantage.  

"You're... taller than you... look," Angel grunted as he felt the toes of his boots skim the pavement.  So much for leverage to break the demon's neck; clearly it was time to review his other options.

He needed both hands to hang on, so even if he thought a stake would work against this uber-vamp he had no way to wield it.  Letting go even temporarily meant releasing a demon who now had a personal grudge against Dawn, and if he called to one of the girls to use his sword and cut off the demon's head... his own head was right behind it.  He was, in a word, screwed.  The only saving grace was that he really didn't see how things could go downhill from here.

And then his cell phone started playing Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyrie."

Angel ignored it at first; it wasn't as though he had time to chat, and anyone who had a free hand with which to call for help was obviously better off than he was.  But he should have known better than to expect four teenage girls to be able to resist the siren song of Ma Bell, no matter the harmony.

"Angel," Dawn called out, "your phone... it's ringing.  Sort of."

"I... know, Dawn."  His grunt turned into a groan when the Turok-Han's fist collided with the side of his head.  "I'm a little... hung up right... now."

Another bar sounded from the phone in his pocket.

"But it might be important."

"Dawn..."

"Angel..."

He groaned again and then gave in to the inevitable.  Wedging one arm more securely under the Turok-Han's granite chin, he pulled the other hand free to reach into his coat pocket and secure the cell phone.  Once free, the device went over his shoulder without a backward look.  Either it would be caught and answered, or it would be smashed to bits when it hit the ground.  At this point he honestly didn't care which as long as the music stopped.  Damn Cordelia and her sense of humor.

He heard Chao Ahn say something, and then Dawn announced, "Angel's phone, Dawn speaking."  The rest of the conversation he tuned out, until he heard Dawn insistently calling his name again.

"Angel, we have to go.  Angel!"

"Dawn, this isn't..."

"Someone's dead," she said flatly.

Fear blinded him for a moment, washing away everything and everyone around him until he was left in an empty howling void.  Then, at last, sweet reason asserted itself.  Dawn sounded angry but she wasn't in tears, which in Angel's mind eliminated Buffy.  And if it had been Connor she wouldn't have been so abrupt with him.  Whoever it was... and there were now more people in his life he wanted to keep safe than he could name... it wasn't his family.

"Fun's over, big guy," Angel whispered in the Turok-Han's ear.  He raised his voice, shouting in Chinese to Chao Ahn what he hoped were battle plans.  Of all that he remembered of her native tongue, the only two words Angel would swear by were "stake" and "kill" – two staples for a vampire in any language he encountered.  Unfortunately only one of them was useful in the current situation.

He loosened his hold on the demon's neck and slid down his back.  Once he hit the ground Angel reached out quickly and pinned the Turok's arms behind his back, ducking down to below the demon's shoulder blades... just a heartbeat before Chao Ahn sliced through the neck above with his sword.

An instant later the uber-vamp turned to a large cloud of fine dust that left Angel coughing up distant kin for several minutes.  

"Okay," he said at last, "what happened?"

Dawn wordlessly handed him the phone.

"Talk to me," he commanded the voice at the other end.  His small band of companions all waited with growing dread to hear some scrap of information, until Dawn thought the suspense would actually cause her physical harm.  At last Angel began to ask questions, but they didn't shed much light on the crisis.  

"So where are you?... And who's there with you again?"  He shook his head at the response.  "No, that's too many; send some of them back to Buffy's... Faith definitely, but beyond that I don't care who... No, you can't have that many people just roaming around; it will attract attention... not to her, to us.  We want to attract attention to her... look, I'll be there in a few minutes.  Just send home most of the girls and we'll take care of the rest when I get there."

He clicked the phone off and stuffed it in his pocket.  When he looked up, he met Dawn's stricken eyes.

"Who was it?" she whispered.  "He wouldn't tell me."

"Gunn said her name was Rona."

"Rona?" the girls all murmured at once.  

"It wasn't a vampire," he reassured them, as if that was any comfort.  "We don't know who it was, actually, which is why I need to go there, and you all need to go home."  He looked at Robin.  "Is your car nearby?"

"I was out for a walk, remember?"

"Right."  Angel sighed and scratched his head.  _New plan_.  "Okay, then how do we stand with heredity?  Are slayer powers handed down?"  

Would Connor still be the same if he'd been Buffy's child, if Angel hadn't turned their world upside down on that long-lost day?  Would any of them be the same?  

"All I got from my mother was her singing voice."

And once again the PTB's gave Angel a resounding 'no.'  

"That's not going to be much help."

Dawn clutched Angel's sleeve.  "Oh, but once there was this musical demon and we all started singing and, well," she started to lose her bubbling enthusiasm when she actually heard the words coming from her mouth, "I guess that's not... that's probably not the kind of thing you're worried about, is it?"

"Not exactly," Angel admitted with a small smile.  "Listen, Mr. Wood, could you walk with the girls back to Buffy's and stay there till I get back?  I can give you a ride home later.  Or," he added, seeing the protest in Robin's eyes long before it reached his lips, "Buffy can give you a ride."

"Some choice," Robin grumbled.  He'd seen Buffy driving in the school parking lot, though he'd always been lucky enough to be well clear of her bumper at the time.

"I need help," Angel snapped.  "We already have one potential slayer dead and I'm trying to avoid it becoming an epidemic.  These girls have some training but they don't have their powers yet, and to any self-respecting vampire they're going to look like nothing but two kids short of a six-pack.  But if you're with them you can tip the balance and make them look like more trouble than they're worth.  Now can I count on you or what?"

Angel was making sense, and that bothered Robin.  When he had let the girls fight the demon by themselves, Robin felt comfortable seeing the vampire as a heartless monster.  Now Angel was acting, if not all warm and fuzzy, at least responsible and concerned, and that was far too human for Robin's comfort.  He had to fight back in some way, to regain the ground he'd inexplicably lost.

"Why don't you take them back and I'll go check on this girl they found?"

Angel threw up his hands; the man was obviously being deliberately obtuse.  "Sure, why not?  I'm sure it will look great in the papers tomorrow morning when they report on the teenage girl from a foreign country whose dead body was found," he spoke the last words very slowly and very clearly, "by the local high school principal."

"All right, all right; point taken."

"Thank you," Angel choked out.  "Now could you please get the hell out of here?"

"Angel."  Dawn tugged at his sleeve.  "I want to come with you."

"Dawn, no."  Angel shook his head and gently removed her hand from his sleeve.  He held it for a moment longer between his two chilled ones as he explained, "When Buffy gets home, especially after all this, the first thing she's going to want to see is your face."

"I'd say it's probably only half of the first thing."

He didn't want to go there; these days he wasn't too sure he was the other half Dawn was talking about, and that idea hurt too much to contemplate.

"Just go with Mr. Wood," he said instead.  "I'll be back soon, and I'm sure Buffy will too."  He forced his lips into an encouraging smile, despite the anxiety clawing at the back of his mind.  "Besides, you have a test to study for, don't you?"

She reluctantly turned and started to follow Robin.

"Oh, and Dawn," Angel called out, "one more thing."

She turned around to face him.  "Yeah?"

"The next time you use that, umm, particular maneuver on a guy, human or demon, make it a really good one or just don't bother."  He grimaced, not wanting to get into specific details with Buffy's little sister, but feeling he owed it to her for that very reason.  "Unless you disable him with it, it will only..."

"Make him mad," she finished with a giggle.  "I heard you the first time."  

For a minute, just one, she felt almost like someone's little girl again.  She was way too old for it now, of course, and if he kept it up she'd have to have a serious talk with him about it.  But just for this one teensy little moment... it was kind of nice.

"I'm not kidding," he warned.

"I know, I know."  With one more laugh at his foolish worrying she turned around and followed Robin and the SITs.

Angel ran his hand through his hair and sighed.  "And I thought raising boys was scary."

* * * * *

"There he is!"  Xander pointed, and then squinted at the target his index finger indicated.  "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I saw him for a sec under that blur of letterman's jackets across the street."

Wesley allowed his tense muscles to relax at last, though he kept the relief from showing on his face just as carefully as he'd tried to hide the anxiety.  Connor was, as Xander had predicted, outside the Bronze.  He was also, as Wesley had predicted, in a fight.

"Good, then we've got him."  Wesley checked his watch before turning to the SITs.  "We'll just give him five minutes or so to finish up and then we can all resume patrol together."

Xander had already started heading towards the fighting boys, but Wesley's words stopped him in his tracks.  He wheeled around to stare at the Watcher, fighting to keep his jaw from scraping the rather slimy pavement.

"Are you serious?" he asked.  "You drag us over here at warp 9 to find the kid and then we're supposed to just hang around shooting the breeze while he gets pummeled?  I thought you actually liked Angel.  Or at least I thought you enjoyed not breathing through a machine."

Wesley nodded at the tangle of fists and legs visible across the street.  "Those aren't demons; they're football players, correct?"

"And the difference would be?"

"Connor can fight them."  Wesley made a face as he physically pushed away the very idea of Connor's defeat.  "They're human.  At best they'll bang him up a bit and teach him a small lesson in humility."

Xander was still trying to reconcile this new, laid-back approach with both the Wesley he remembered from 4 years earlier, and the one who was so concerned about Connor less than an hour ago.

"At best?  As in we root for the home team?"  

"You know what I mean.  Connor can hold his own with them."  Wesley smiled as he saw one head snap back from a blow to the chin, a blow not extending from the red wool sleeve of a varsity jacket.  "If anything we may have to intervene to keep him from damaging any of them too severely."

"And this is the kid we had to chase all over town to protect him from Spike.  Oh that makes perfect sense," Xander scoffed.

Wesley's relaxed attitude vanished instantly at the mention of Spike's name.  He was all business now.

"Spike is another matter entirely.  The physical damage he can inflict on Connor is considerably more than these arrogant steroid-swollen children, but that isn't even the worst of it."  He leaned forward, his words for Xander's ears alone.  "You've seen the relationship between Angel and Connor; it is frequently antagonistic and susceptible to slightest pressure."

Xander's voice was light, but his eyes betrayed 22 years of harsh experience.  "Angel's the dad, Connor's the son; exactly why does hostility come as such a shocker?"  

"It's not normal, Xander."  Wesley knew exactly how Xander felt, more so than he would ever let the younger man know.  But he clung to his ideals nonetheless.  "I believe that after encountering the true Angelus, Connor may be able to learn to distinguish between the actions of his father and those of the demon, if," he stressed the word, "nothing occurs right now to tip the balance."

Xander winced as he thought back to earlier that evening.  "Nothing, like, say...stories about the bad old days."

"That is precisely what I believe Spike would use to..."   Suddenly the hesitancy in the younger man's voice registered.  "What did you tell him, Xander?"

"Not much."  Xander shrugged, trying to remember the details and not remember them at the same time.  "Just, you know, about the, umm, stalking thing, and Willow's fish and, well, about Miss Calendar in Giles' bed and..."

"Dear Lord," Wesley breathed in dismay.

"Miss Who where?"  Molly took a quick step away from her fellow SITs to interject herself into the more interesting conversation.  Unfortunately for her curiosity, the two men ignored her.

"Look, I didn't tell him anything that wasn't true," Xander said defensively.  "And I wasn't doing it to stick it to Angel, either, no matter what you think.  The kid asked and I answered."

"In detail.  
  


"Yeah, in detail.  But if you have to know, part of that detail included the fact that I think the demon was the only one who came close to hating Angel as much as I did back then."

Wesley shook his head.  "And you think that makes everything all right?"

"No," Xander snapped, "but since I'm not the one who actually created the mess, I don't think I'm in charge of the clean-up detail.  Like I said, he asked and I answered.  I'd say I was sorry I didn't lie to the kid for my good buddy Angel's sake, but you know...I'm actually not."  

"Perish the thought."

"And for all your talk about protecting him," Xander continued over Wesley's disparaging comment, "I don't think you'd flat-out lie to Connor either."

Wesley turned his eyes to Connor once more.  The boy had finished his fight, and apparently successfully if the three limping football players carrying their unconscious comrade were any evidence.  He was, if anything, too like his father, the Watcher silently mused; though they would both rather die than admit it.  Connor could fight anything tangible, and winning was almost always a surety.  But a few words from the wrong source could undercut everything he believed about himself and the whole came crashing down, usually creating other casualties in its wake.

"No, I wouldn't lie," he said at last.  "But be very careful what you label as the truth, Xander.  No one person sees it all, and the piece you're missing might be the most important."

* * * * *

Rona's jaw hung slack, her mouth barely opened to the scream she hadn't had time to utter.  The head that lay pillowed on a crumpled section of newspaper was twisted at an unnatural angle betraying the broken bone beneath her bluing skin.

"Faith found her," Gunn said somberly, "and then one of the girls screamed and Willow and I heard it and came running.  When we saw..." he gestured to Rona's broken doll body, "I called you."

Angel stood up and forced himself to look down at the girl dispassionately.  There would be time for those who knew her to mourn her, but first they had to make some decisions and get some answers.  They owed the girl... Rona... at least that much.

"How did she get here, do we know?"  He looked over at Faith, who had refused to leave Rona until Angel arrived.  "She was with you when we left; how did she get separated?"

"I don't know," Faith admitted in a low voice.  "We were checking out the parks, seeing what we could beat out of the bushes and I know she was there because I saw her.  But then..."

"Then what?" Angel asked, his voice sharper than he meant it to be.  The SITs were all roughly the same age as Buffy when he first got to know her, but they seemed like such children in comparison.  Little girls playing dress up with their favorite superhero's powers.  Rona could have been any of them... or all of them.

"I don't know."  Faith's hands tightened into fists.  "I was trying to talk to Anya and she just wouldn't let up and then I told her to go and... that's when I noticed."

"Anya?  She's missing too?"

"No," Faith quickly reassured him.  "She had some hot date or something, so she bailed early.  Maybe if I hadn't spent so much time trying to make her stay I would have seen Rona trying to ditch us."

Angel could hear the guilty misery in her tone; it was a sound he knew better than most.  It gave him no comfort to hear it coming from Faith, though.

"Faith, you can't blame yourself."

"Like hell I can't!" she flared.  "What, you get all the good guilt around here?  You're not up for sharing?"

"It could have happened to any of us.  These girls have been thrown into a world they don't understand and some of them are going to make choices they're not ready for.  And we're not always going to be able to predict them either."

"Look, forget the blame game for now," Gunn interrupted.  "We need a plan.  We can't just leave her here."

Willow shivered at the thought.  "Could one of you guys carry her back to Buffy's?  If it's not too creepy, that is."  She regretted the word 'creepy' the instant after it left her mouth; it sounded disrespectful of the dead.  But it was too late to call it back.  "Gunn's right.  We can't just leave her here."

"We have to."  Angel tried to keep his tone gentle, but firm.  "We can't bury her in the backyard like a puppy."

"I wasn't going to suggest it," Willow said stiffly, sensing a criticism for past behavior.  Angel, like Giles, had made no secret of his opposition to burying Buffy in the woods, even after they... she... explained the practicality of hiding her death from both bad guys and bad fathers.  It was almost as if he sensed there had been another reason she needed to keep things secret.

"And we have to make sure her parents are notified," Angel continued.  He didn't want to think about how they were going to feel when they got the news.  Knowing your child's destiny and accepting its completion were two very different things, as Connor had taught him from day 1.  "I'm sorry, but we have to let the police find her."

"How?" Gunn asked practically.

Angel nodded at the cell phone clipped to Faith's belt.  "Call 911."

"So we were all just out taking a walk and just happened to stumble over a body?"  Gunn's tone didn't even begin to cover his doubt.

"No," Angel said slowly, "Willow and..." he searched for the name, "Jackie?"

"Kennedy," the SIT corrected him.  "Who's Jackie?"

Angel gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to suggest the SITS learn some history beyond that found in the Watcher's Diaries.  

"Sorry, Kennedy.  Willow and Kennedy were out taking a walk and found her.  Faith," he directed the Slayer, "give Willow your phone."

Gunn shook his head as Faith handed over her cell to Willow.  "I don't like it.  We still don't know who or what killed her.  They can't stay out here alone.  I'll stick around just in case."

"They won't be alone because I'll be here."  Angel gestured to the far end of the alley, by the dumpster.  "In the shadows.  Lurking.  I do it better than you do."

Faith clapped Gunn on the shoulder and smiled for the first time in what felt like days.  "Sorry tough guy, but he really does."

"Take Faith and go back to Buffy's.  Check on the other girls.  And start calling everyone in," Angel continued, pulling a small slip of paper from his coat pocket.  "I have the cell numbers here."

"What do I tell them?"

"As little as you can get away with.  I don't want anybody getting any dumb ideas about forming new hunting parties tonight.  We need to regroup first.  And," he added softly, looking down at the sixteen-year-old girl who would never be any older, "the girls need a little time to grieve.  It may be the last time they get that luxury."

"Angel," Willow said, placing a gentle hand on his sleeve, "Buffy's not going to be a happy camper if you don't tell her everything."

He flinched and looked away, not wanting her to see the regret in his eyes.  It wasn't as though Willow was telling him something he didn't know; he was already treading a fine line with Buffy, and this might just tip him over to the enemy side in her book.  But he couldn't let that sway him from doing what he believed was right.

"I will, just not right now."

"That won't cut it," she warned.

"It's going to have to," he said abruptly.  After all the stresses of the past few weeks, up to and including a recent battle with a Turok-Han and the discovery of a dead teenager who could just as easily have been Connor, his patience was beginning to wear thin.  "This isn't about her."

"Of course it's about her."  Willow stared at him as though he were a stranger, and a possibly demented stranger at that.  "She's responsible for these girls, and they're here to help her."

"Look, after what happened this morning I doubt she wants another run in with the police..."

"What happened..." Willow started to ask, but Angel wasn't finished.

"But even if she does," he said over her question, "it doesn't matter.  This is about doing what's best for Rona right now."

"Well sure, but... it's just that I hate to see you guys tearing at each other like this.  If you're ever going to fix anything between you, you have to start sharing things."

He looked at her somberly.  "I will if she will."

* * * * *

Buffy pushed her front door open and stepped into what she had assumed would be a deserted foyer.  Instead most of the usual crowd was there, looking unusually somber.

And then there was Angel, who looked more mad than brooding for a change.  He was in the middle of wearing a tread mark in the hall runner when they came in, leaving him in a perfect position to confront them before Buffy could slip into the living room.

"Where the hell have you been?" he snapped.  "The rest of us got back hours ago."  He turned to Fred as Buffy's jaw continued to plummet.  "And why wasn't your phone on?"

Fred opened her mouth to explain, but Buffy's slayer instincts led her into battle first, leaving guilt to finish a poor second.

"Just because you all quit early doesn't mean I get to," she said, pretending a cool distance from his anger that she didn't feel.  "Read my contract sometime.  No pay, no benefits, on-call 24/7 and all the late nights I can yawn my way through alive."  

Angel bit back a reply.  He'd spent most of the last few hours kicking himself for his declaration that no extra hunting parties should be formed.  When he got back to the house and learned that Buffy was still out there with Fred and three of the SITs, and that Fred's phone was turned off, he had wanted to turn around immediately and search every inch of Sunnydale until her found her.  Instead he waited, and fumed, and muttered under his breath and panicked in the least obvious way he knew how, until the moment he saw her face and knew she was all right.

Then it was back to fuming.  It was the only way he knew to keep from putting his arms around her and never letting go.

"We had some trouble," he began.

Buffy's anger died a quick death when she really looked at Angel for the first time since she'd come in, and realized the look in his eyes that she'd thought was annoyance... was actually fear.

"Trouble?" she repeated in a bleak voice.  "I'd ask who died, but there's usually an answer."  Quickly she scanned the room, counting noses and feeling the tight place in her chest loosen with each succeeding name added to the roll.  Dawn's appearance abruptly stopped the countdown, though.

"Dawn, what happened?"  She hurried across the room to check out the raw scrapes and red marks she could see on her sister's face and arms.

Dawn's face lit up at her question.  "Buffy, it was so cool," she said breathlessly.  "At first we didn't see anybody but then there was this Turok-Ha.." her voice trailed off almost immediately, as she suddenly realized Buffy was probably not going to consider her adventures 'cool,' or even acceptable.  "Ha, ha ha, ha, ha," she finished uneasily.  "I made a little joke.

"A Turok-Han?" Buffy exclaimed.  Now it was her turn to shoot Angel a hard look.  "You were supposed to be watching out for her."

He met her gaze steadily, almost with relief.  This kind of anger, the kind roused on behalf of others, was a part of the Buffy he remembered.  

"I was there to teach," he corrected her.  "That's what they need, not a babysitter.  And I think the best knowledge comes from experience."

"Gee, can I put that on her tombstone?"

"Buffy, he didn't just watch, not even close."  Dawn couldn't look at Angel, she felt so bad for letting her excitement get him in trouble.  Instead she focused her attention on Buffy, trying to cast a net over her big-sisterly hysteria before things got any worse.  "He helped a lot.  He got the demon all tired out first, and then when he let us go after it he kept on jumping in again."  Somehow it didn't seem like enough; Dawn frantically searched her memory for the coup de grace.  "But he let Chao Ahn kill it," she finished with a bright smile.  "With his sword even."

"Wasn't that thoughtful?" her older sister shot back.

From the moment he arrived, Buffy had been trying to build a wall in her heart against Angel.  Now, at last, she had a foundation.  Standing toe to toe with him, she glared up at his pale face, closing her heart to the weariness in his eyes and the fading bruises she could see on his face and hands.

"You had no right," she said tightly.

"Buffy, I'm sorry but it's not like I went looking for it," he said softly, gazing down into her hostile hazel eyes.  "The demon came at us from nowhere and we didn't have much choice except to fight."

"You could have walked away."  

It was on the tip of her tongue to add a comment about his proficiency in this area when she was interrupted by a voice coming from the far end of the living room.

"Finally something we agree on." 

Buffy whirled around, finding the face she expected to match the voice, although it wasn't a face she expected to see in her home.

"Robin?  What are you doing here?"  Suddenly she remembered who else was here in her living room and her anger turned to fear.  "I told you to stay away.  I thought I made that really, really clear actually."  Through sheer force of will she kept her eyes from wandering back to Angel, though she couldn't help but wonder now if all his bruises had been demon-induced.

"I was out taking a walk and ran into your sister.  I thought it was worth stopping to find out what brought her out on the night before a big biology test."

Buffy looked at Dawn in astonishment as she abruptly switched from slayer to sister.  "You have a test tomorrow?  You never said that."

"I, umm," Dawn shrugged and turned her excuse into a question in hopes of getting the pity vote.  "I forgot?"

"Nice try," Buffy said sourly.  "Go study.  Now."

"Angel said it nicer," her sister grumbled as she got up from her spot on the floor and trudged through the crowd to reach the stairs.

Buffy felt an odd tingle when she heard Dawn's comment; it was almost as though she and Angel were... no they weren't, she reminded herself quickly.  They weren't anything anymore; they couldn't be.  And even if they could be, he had let Dawn place herself in danger; she had to hold on tight to that thought.  Despite her resolve, it was only with effort that she was able to drag her thoughts away from the dangerous path Dawn had sent them down.  

She focused on Robin with a icy stare, hoping to silently remind him of the promises she'd made earlier should he be so foolish as not follow directions.

"So did you really need to follow her home to make sure she'd study?"  

"I asked him to bring the girls home," Angel answered before Robin could speak.  "I told you, there was trouble."

She resumed her scan of the room, interrupted earlier by Dawn's appearance.  Angel and Dawn were obviously safe if not entirely sound; Lorne stood near Angel, with Gunn on his other side.  She mentally checked off SITs by face, if not name, circling round to Connor standing behind Cordelia's chair.   Xander was in the far corner of the room by the kitchen door, bracketed by more SITs.  Fred had been with her.  That left...

"Willow?  Where's Willow?" she demanded.

"At the police station."  Angel's voice was deliberately calm, but inwardly he was cursing himself for his stupidity.  Of course she would notice Willow's absence first, and the fear of losing yet another person she loved would blot out all else for a minute.  He'd been there himself just a few minutes before, until she walked in the door.

"She and Kennedy are there giving statements.  About Rona," he added, seeing the question in her eyes before she could voice it.

"What about Rona?  What did she do?"  Buffy could feel her temper rising again; Rona could be a handful with her attitude and top of all the other problems she was dealing with right now she really didn't need...

"Rona was killed tonight, Buffy."

His quiet voice sent her selfish thoughts slamming headlong into a wall.  "Killed?" she repeated in a small voice.  "Was it..."

"No, she wasn't bitten."  Angel shared a weighty glance with Wesley before he carefully added, "We don't even know if it was a demon."

"But how then?  We were all in groups... that was your big plan.  Safety in numbers, right?"

Faith stepped forward, sliding between Buffy and Angel to act as a buffer.  "It's my fault.  She was with me, and she just..." she turned her hands palm upwards and raised them in supplication, "slipped away at some point.  I don't know how or why or when; I just know it's my fault.  I screwed up."

"You screwed up?"  Buffy's bitter voice made a mockery of Faith's confession.  "She's dead, Faith.  That's more than a screw up, even for you."

"I know, I know.  I'm not... jeeze, I'm not trying to make this sound like it's no big deal."  Faith paused to regain a measure of control.  Buffy always seemed to bring her worst instincts front and center but she couldn't afford to give in to them tonight.  

"But I can't change it, B," she continued.  "She got away from me and when I realized it I tried to call here but no one answered.  So we went looking for her ourselves, but by the time we found her it was too late."

"Call?" Lorne asked, glancing from Faith to Angel.  "As in ring-a-ding-ding?"  

A frown creased the demon's forehead as he tried to remember a time when the phone might have rung that night where he hadn't been in a position to hear it.  But all he could remember was a long night in front of the television with Cordy, most of it spent with crossed legs because she kept on hogging the bathroom.  That a fellow tended to remember. 

Lorne was going to say something, but the vibes in the room were beginning to scare him, and he really didn't want to add any negative energy.  At this point he was fairly hesitant to remind people that he even existed.

"You called here," Buffy said slowly, "but with all those little cell phones Angel handed out no one tried to call me."  She could sense a wary stillness in Angel and set her sights on him.  "What about you?  When did you find out about all this?"

"Gunn and Willow ran into Faith and her slayers just after they found Rona.  Since Faith hadn't had any luck calling here, Gunn called me."

"And you just forgot," she snapped her fingers, "to let me in on it too.  Never mind that I was responsible for her."  Her cold hazel eyes shifted over to settle on Faith.  "In fact I'd say I was the only one who took responsibility for her."

Angel stared at her in disbelief.  "Your phone was turned off, oh paragon of responsibility.  You're the one who grew up with electricity; you tell me what the problem was."

"You were supposed to keep that thing on," Gunn said, looking at Fred.  "You know, in case of that trouble thing that usually rains down on us."  He wanted to be angry with her, but he wasn't having much luck getting past his relief at having her back safely.  "You know better than that, baby.  Where was your head at?"

The fighting, for the most part, had washed over Fred like so much white noise.  Since the moment Angel announced that one of the SITs had died, she had been preoccupied trying to match the name to a face; it just seemed so wrong to say 'Rona died' without any memory of a smile or a voice or even an irritating habit that made her stand out.  Her time with the girls had been brief, however, and she'd never been good with names, so the quest was proving more consuming than Fred had imagined.  It took her lover's question to draw her back to the conversation with a guilty start.   

"The phone... we turned... I turned it off... the noise... the ringing makes noise and..."

"I told her to turn it off," Buffy said shortly.  "I didn't want it ringing while we were hunting."  

"Well," Xander said slowly, "she does have a point.  It's tough to be stealthy when your butt starts playing show tunes."

He smiled brightly at Buffy, hoping once again that his joking comments would show Buffy that he was still the same guy who'd stood by her all these years.  The guy who would stand by her through almost anything, if she'd just let him back in her life.

But the reality of the situation was just beginning to sink in for Buffy, and she was too busy fighting the downward spiral of her emotions to even hear Xander.  

Another SIT was dead, this one a girl she had spent enough time with to have feelings about.  Not always the kindest feelings, it was true, but they made her a person in Buffy's eyes, not just a stat in the Watcher's Diaries.

"I can't believe this," she murmured.  She couldn't look at Angel, but she didn't need to.  He would know her words were meant for him.  "You were supposed to be here to help.  You keep on saying you're here to help me and instead more people end up dead."

"Buffy, I didn't kill her," Angel protested.  "I don't know who or what did, but I will find out and we will stop it."

"No, I'll stop it," she said.  Her voice was calm, and suddenly very cold.  "That's what I do."  She looked around the room, realizing for the first time that a usually vocal presence was missing from this fight.  "Where's Spike?"

"Someone takin' my name in vain?" the vampire in question asked as he strolled in the front door.  "Again?"

Buffy took a step back from Angel at the sound of Spike's voice and turned to greet him, blocking from her mind the fleeting look of disgust she saw on Angel's face.  She couldn't fix it, so there was no point in acknowledging it.

"You're all wet."  She frowned at Spike and gestured to the water droplets still trembling on the hem of his coat.  "Why are you all wet... on my living room carpet?" she added, wincing as the first of the water beads hit her wool rug.

Spike glanced down at the damp spot just beginning to form in a semi-circle around his coat.  "Sorry about that, luv.  Didn't mean to make a mess."

Wesley and Angel had spent a great deal of the past few hours putting Spike's absence together with Rona's death, and coming up with an unhappy correlation.  The stumbling block, however, was motive.  As far as Angel could tell, Rona hadn't lost even a drop of blood, and Wesley accepted Angel's testimony as that of an expert when it came to blood.  And beyond hunger, the Watcher couldn't fathom a reason why Spike would make a point of getting away from the group just to kill one insignificant SIT.  It simply didn't make sense, and it wouldn't until they got some more facts.

"Why Spike, where on earth have you been this long, _long_ time?"  Wesley smiled as his eyes traveled up and down the waterlogged vampire, and insincerity oozed from every syllable when he added, "We were worried about you."

"I've been looking all over town for you."  The vampire summoned every bit of indignation he could express and gave it full vent.  "You were supposed to wait for me, but when I got back," he spread his hands wide, "not a trace.  Thought you'd been eaten or something, but I couldn't be sure."  

"You, umm, you got separated?"  Buffy looked from the Watcher to the vampire, trying to measure who was lying by their level of discomfort at her question.  Both men, however, looked equally at ease.

"Spike left us fairly early on.  Something about a demon only he could see... wasn't that the reason, Spike?"

The vampire nodded vigorously.  "It was a Tralgar demon.  Nasty things, spit acid to kill their prey."  He ran his hand down the length of his sleeve.  "Had to jump in the water, coat and all, to get it off."  

Wesley had expected an excuse, but despite Xander's warning and his own experiences, he really had thought he would get a better one.  His suspicions grew, along with his confusion.

"Funny, I've never heard of a Tralgar this far west," he mused.  "Have you, Angel?"

"Not in a seaside town."  Angel's voice was hard with suspicion.  "They're terrified of salt water."

"It corrodes their outer layer of skin," Wesley explained for the demonology-challenged.  "Funny you should know about the acid, Spike, and not about that."

Spike got an uneasy crawling sensation down the length of his spine.  His useless sire and the wet dishrag of a Watcher were united against him and getting set to carry the rest of the room along with them.  They were going to wreck everything he'd done for Buffy with their nasty little suspicions, and all out of sheer spite.  But he wasn't going to let them.  He was going to carry off this story if it killed him, or them.  

Preferably them.

"And that's just how I said I got away, isn't it?" Spike protested.  "Make a fellow feel guilty for being smart enough to survive, why don't you?"

"You?  Feel guilty?"  Xander snorted.  "That'll be the century."

Amanda had heard enough.  She'd heard enough on this night, and the night before, and the weeks before that, but suddenly it all came pouring out of her like lava.  Every time she'd bitten her tongue and tried to find the good, or at least the good intentions, in her companions was feeding into her anger tonight.   

"Why are you doing this?" she cried.  "Rona is dead and you can't stop insulting each other long enough to care.  It might have been any of us."  She scrambled to her feet from the floor and stood trembling in the middle of the room.  "If it's me next time, are you even going to notice if it doesn't make for a good comeback?"

"Amanda, calm down."  Buffy immediately put aside her anger and walked over to rest her arm around the girl's shoulders.  "I'm sorry we're acting like this; it's just that there's a lot of history going on here and sometimes it kind of takes over everything else."

Amanda pulled away from Buffy.  "And now Rona is history but she doesn't rate as something to argue over.  None of us do; we're just extras."

Buffy's protest was automatic, but honest.  "That's not true." 

"Yeah it is.  If we're not sleeping with someone you know, or trying to sleep with someone you know, or mad at you for sleeping with someone... we just don't exist."  

She didn't wait for Buffy to respond; it wasn't as though she thought there would be any excuse she hadn't heard before.  Instead she pushed her way past the Slayer and the rest of the group assembled throughout the living room and hallway and ran up the stairs.  A slamming door was her final comment.

"She doesn't really believe that, does she?" Buffy asked Xander.  Before he could answer, she started looking at the SITs one by one.  "You girls don't believe that, do you?  You know she's wrong, right?"

There was an awkward silence in the living room, and none of the SITs would look her in the eye.  Many uncomfortable glances were passed between them, however, as they began their mass exodus to the second floor bedrooms.

Buffy sank down on the suddenly empty couch.  "What happened here?" she asked no one in particular.  "I thought I was getting through to them that we need to stick together if we're going to beat the First."

Xander felt the old bonds of friendship pulling at him, telling him to go to Buffy, but for once he resisted.  It was time she faced facts, no matter how much they hurt.

"I know you think the family that slays together stays together, Buff, but there's more to it than that."  He focused on her bewildered hazel eyes as he took a step backwards towards the staircase.  "You gotta practice what you preach, Sister Buffy, or else... get out of the pulpit."    

* * * * *

_Did it get any better than this?  _

Cordelia thought not.

She sat quietly in her chair, as she had from the time the first contingent of frightened SITs arrived, striving for the appearance of concern and deep thought.  Inside, though, it was all she could do to keep from jumping up and leading a cheer.  She just couldn't believe her luck.  They were fighting already, taking sides and leveling the cheap shots and she didn't need to do a thing to egg them on.  In fact she was afraid to say anything at all for fear it would break the spell.

It should have made her mad that her little surprise hadn't been uncovered yet, but everything was unfolding just the way she had envisioned anyway.  It was perfect.  No, better than perfect.  It was...well, whatever better than the very best was.  The anger and distrust would feed on each other and continue to drive them apart, and then when they finally tumbled to her work it would only stoke the fire.  

Well, they might need a little more nudging, she admitted.  But nothing she couldn't handle.  After tonight, she didn't think there was anything she couldn't handle.

* * * * *

"Angel-face."  Lorne tugged at the vampire's sleeve, trying to draw him quietly down the hallway towards the kitchen.  "Angel-face, walk with me," he said in a voice he knew only a demon's sensitive ears could catch.  "Talk with me."

Angel frowned at the demon.  "Lorne, this really isn't a good time."

"Humor me."

"Look, it's late and tempers are...well, they're pretty hot right now."  He pulled his arm free of Lorne's grasp.  "I don't think we should be hanging around Buffy's house making tea and..."

"Agreed.  No tea."  He raised one green hand and then placed it firmly on his posterior.  "I swear."

"Lorne..."

"Angel-cakes, this is serious."  Lorne pulled at Angel's sleeve again, this time succeeding in drawing the vampire further away from the crowded living room.  "It's about Faith's phone call."

* * * * *

To Be Continued


	6. Chapter 6

A.N. There is a quotation in this part, indicated by // marks.  The quote is from "Seeing Red."  There is also a reference to William's human life and the situation in London immediately prior to his death.  The conclusion Angel draws is my invention, but the situation he bases it on is from "Fool for Love."

Dead End

**Part 6**

By Gem 

Angel led Lorne into Buffy's kitchen, motioning the demon to remain silent until he had checked that the room was empty and the doors connecting the kitchen to the hallway and living room were closed. Once he was satisfied they would not be overheard, Angel leaned against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Okay, Lorne, what's the big mystery about Faith's call?"  He made a show of looking out the window over the sink as he adopted a more sarcastic tone.  "Other than the fact that two, no three, people just let a telephone ring when the whole idea was..."

"That's just it," Lorne interrupted.  "It's not like I have visions of becoming another Sherlock Holmes..." he paused to chuckle, "I mean all that tweed would do only bad things for my complexion..."

"Lorne."  

Angel didn't say any more, but he didn't have to.  Confronted with a distinctly unamused stare from his very favorite vampire, the smile swiftly disappeared from the demon's face.

"But the really strange thing is that I never heard the phone ring tonight.  Not once."

Angel frowned.  "But Faith said she called.  She said she let it ring a couple of times."

"I know.  That I heard."  Lorne raised his hands and flipped them over, palms upward, as he shrugged.  "But whatever bells our girl was ringing, she didn't jingle mine."

"Maybe..." Angel thought fast, "maybe she got a wrong number."

"From speed dial?"  Lorne didn't bother to spell out his doubt; it permeated every syllable.

"She could have hit the wrong button."  He began to restlessly prowl the perimeter of the kitchen.  "Lorne, are you absolutely sure?  You couldn't have been in the bathroom at some point, or maybe nodded off or..."

"Or stepped outside to catch a puff?" Lorne offered.  "Not this demon.  I have far too much respect for my range."  He smoothed one hand over the back of his hair as he made a painful admission.  "Plus I'm really not tall enough to carry off the smoke and whiskey voice."

"I didn't mean... "

"Angel-face, I was here all night."  

The demon's voice became a patient thread tying up all the unendurable facts into one ugly bundle as he recounted the memories Cordelia had planted in his mind.

"Cordy and I watched an awards show and critiqued all the outfits.  Then we watched an old movie and she told me about every audition she ever went on or tried to get her agent to let her go on.  Every single one," he stressed.  "I admit it was enough to put an insomniac to sleep, but I resisted because she's my Cordy and I wouldn't hurt her feelings for the world.  So I was awake, painfully so, and I heard not ring one from that phone."  He shrugged.  "Ask Cordy; she'll tell you the same thing.  If Faith called..."

Angel stopped his pacing and looked hard at his friend.  "Not 'if,' Lorne."

"If," Lorne repeated, a little more loudly this time, "she called, she wasn't calling us."

"Damn!" Angel swore under his breath.  "If I hadn't let Willow use that phone to call 911 I could do a redial on it and see... well, see that she called here and Buffy's phone was just off the hook or broken or something."

"But you did, so you can't."  Lorne hesitated, knowing he was bringing up a sensitive subject.  "That means it comes down to trust."

"I trust you, Lorne.  I know you're not lying to me."  That thought had never even occurred to Angel; he had hoped Lorne would realize that without him having to say it.  "It's just that I can't believe Faith is lying either, not to me.  Not after all we've been through.  There has to be another answer."

Lorne reached up and patted him on the shoulder, turning the gesture from comforting to practical as he tried to rub out a small stain of Turok drool from Angel's shirt collar with his thumb.  

"So far all I see are questions.  But you're the detective in the family."

Angel twisted away from Lorne's hand and grimaced as another, more pressing matter came to mind.  "The problem is I have more questions than you know, and I can't leave here tonight until I get some straight answers."  He glanced at the closed kitchen door blocking his view of Buffy.  "No matter how hard they are to come by."

* * * * *

On the other side of the kitchen door, the living room was quiet in the wake of the SIT's en masse departure, a marked change from the chaos that usually reigned there.  Not trusting himself to stay silent any longer, Xander had also bowed out quickly after he'd offered his advice, leaving a shattered Buffy to the ministrations of a group of almost-strangers, and Spike.

"Bloody ungrateful gits!" the vampire swore.  His voice sounded unusually loud in the otherwise silent room.  "Not ashamed to hide behind your skirts in battle, are they?  But as soon as the fighting's over they turn on you like scorpions."

He aimed his voice at the stairs, hoping both the SITs on the second floor, and Angel, wherever the hell he was, would hear his impassioned defense of his goddess.  

"Spike," Wesley said, "I'm almost certain this isn't helping."  He glanced at Buffy, who sat, small and silent, on the sofa.  "I'm not sure if anything can at the moment."

"What's not helping is that bunch of useless understudies," Spike countered.  "They treat the place like a bleedin' hotel, never do a thing to earn their keep..."

"And when's the last time you helped with the cooking?" Andrew objected from his chair in the corner.  He prodded his chest with his index finger as he added, "You know, I'm being held here against my will... mostly... but at least I take out the garbage once in a while."

"I'm thinking he missed a piece," Gunn said under his breath to Fred.  The slightly nervous smile she offered him in return made him feel a little closer to her, but even so he regretted the comment when Spike turned to glare at him.  After more than 3 years of working with Angel, he still occasionally forgot the extreme sensitivity of vampire hearing.

"And all of you, showing up like you're the last hope of the universe when all you really are is a bunch of ruddy incompetents."  Spike's scornful glance swept over the A.I. team, lingering on Connor.  "Must run in the family."

Buffy's fragile control was nearing its limits.  Too many people and events had flooded her life in the last few days, each one grabbing for her attention and jealously hoarding it once obtained.  Now the most jealous of all was all she seemed to have left, at least if he had anything to say about it.   

"Leave them out of it, Spike," she commanded.  At least she tried to make it a command but her voice sounded strangely weak, even to her.  Pride forced Buffy to clear her throat and try again.  "Things started falling apart before they got here; they just... sped up the crash."

"I said I was sorry," Faith protested.  "What's it going to take?  Blood?"  She flung one arm out towards Buffy, turning her hand over to expose her veins.  "Didn't help last time, but maybe..."

"Faith," Wesley said quietly, "that was uncalled for."

The younger slayer's hand curled into a fist as she retracted her arm.  "Listen harder, Wes.  She's not just calling for it; she's yodeling."

"Poor little second-skimmings slayer," Spike mocked.  An idea occurred to him, a way to keep Angel focused on his own camp instead of Buffy, and possibly an out for him should Helmet Hair actually detect anything incriminating about Rona's death.  "Can't handle the competition, luv, now that you're not the only slayer in the yard?  Say, maybe you bumped off the chit just to keep ahead of the game."

"Hey," Gunn snapped, "you got no call to be talking like that to her."

Cordelia released a gusty sigh, trying to sound regretful although she was smiling on the inside.  "Actually, Gunn, he does.  It wouldn't exactly be the first time for Faith."

"Doubt she can even remember the first time," Spike opined cheerfully.  Really, this sowing the seeds of discontent thing was dead easy, not to mention fun.

"Now that is about enough," Wesley barked at Spike, but it was too late.  The damage had been done.

"So now you think I killed that girl too?"  Faith looked around the room quickly, not actually allowing any time for dissenting opinions to be heard.  "Can't you just feel the love in this room?  Guess I'll just have to find your killer for you."

She moved with characteristic slayer speed, and her proximity to the front door helped as well.  She was gone in a flash, before Wesley's warning to grab her was even halfway up his throat.

"Dammit!" Wesley swore as Angel and Lorne came back into the living room from the kitchen.

"What happened?" Angel asked, his dark eyes shifting rapidly from one guilty face to another.  Only Spike, and curiously Cordelia, displayed no signs of discomfort.

"Faith's gone," Wesley said flatly.  He hovered indecisively by the half-open door, torn between immediately running after Faith and gathering reinforcements for when he found her.  He was under no illusions as to who Faith really listened to these days.  "She feels we suspect her of killing the girl, and she wants to find the true guilty party."

Automatically Angel started for the door, calling over his shoulder, "And a room full of people just let her go?  In the state she's in?"  

"Oh no, we can't have Faith running around upset, now can we?"  Buffy's voice had unexpectedly regained its normal strength, with an additional dose of sarcasm coloring her tones.  "Why don't you just run after her, Angel?  I'm sure that's what she's waiting for."

Angel stopped dead in his tracks and bit back the sharp reply that sprang too easily to his lips.  There had been enough fighting for one night, and he still had one difficult discussion left to have with Buffy before he could call it a day.  But knowing this and practicing it were two different things, and he was still choking on the effort when Wesley added his own surprising commentary.

"I rather think she is, though not in the way Buffy means."  Wesley smiled apologetically at Angel, knowing how uncomfortable the vampire felt when someone mentioned Faith's apparent attachment to him.  "You do realize you're her motivation, don't you?  For redemption, I mean.  She wants to pay you back for the time and effort you've expended on her, and show you it's not all a waste."

"Fat lot of chance she's got there," Spike sniped.  "Girl was born a waste of effort."

Gunn gritted his teeth; that bleached out mosquito was really beginning to get on his nerves.  "Look, I'll go after her."  

Fred had already begun to feel a sort of kinship with Buffy, after fighting by her side for a few hours.  Now, however, she could truly understand the Slayer's frustration with the sudden metamorphosis of Faith into a wounded dove.

"No one asked you to, Charles."  Fred's voice was as stiff as her spine, and neither spoke well of Gunn's future if he followed Faith into the dark night.  "She's a slayer.  If she can't handle herself against the things that go bump in the night, who can?"

"Baby, it's not the bump that's the worry," Gunn explained.  "It's the 'slash, slash, slash' after they knock you down that'll kill you."

"Exactly," Cordelia chimed in.  "And someone really should stop Faith before she starts all that slashing."

Angel made a quick decision, based as much on the fire in Fred's eyes as in Buffy's.  Safety in numbers definitely came into play when the green-eyed monster was the demon being battled.

"We'll all go," he said, nodding at Gunn and Wesley.  "Lorne and Fred can go with Cordy back to the mansion.  I'd say Connor should be with us, but I'd like someone around them who can tell the First when he doesn't smell him."  Angel looked pointedly at Spike as he added, "Unfortunately only a few of us have senses that strong... even fewer than there should be."

Spike looked confused, and then Angel saw a flash of something akin to guilt flitted through his eyes.  Guilt... or perhaps only the certainty of exposure.

"Yeah, well that smell thing," the blond vampire blustered, "that isn't always the best thing to rely on.  I mean sure, in the good old days before pollution you could tell a lot from..."

"Don't you have an elsewhere to be?" Buffy broke in.  

Spike stopped speaking in sheer astonishment, and a burst of anger.  The latter was quickly assuaged, however, when he realized her words had not been directed at him.

Angel didn't look nearly as pleased, though.

* * * * *

Anger and hurt carried Angel as far as the sidewalk, but a stronger and far more deeply ingrained emotion stopped him before he went any further.  In the name of that emotion he grabbed Wesley by the sleeve and pulled him aside.

"You guys go on without me.  There's something that's come up... something Dawn told me... and I really need to ask Buffy about it."  Angel weighed his words before adding, "I need to know if what I'm thinking is true."  

"Are you sure this is the right time to confront Buffy?" Wesley murmured, eyeing his friend with concern.  "She's already in a fragile state; I don't know how much more she can stand tonight."

"That's why I have to try again, Wes."  Angel gazed off into the distance, trying to find the right words.  "She's got herself... cordoned off, almost... like she's a museum exhibit or something."  He made his hands into a megaphone and called softly through them, "See the World's Greatest Living Slayer.  Isn't it amazing?  She looks almost real."  

Angel's hands fell to his side as he made the effort to look Wesley in the eye.  "Except she is real, and she doesn't belong behind ropes or on a pedestal separated from everyone who used to make her life worthwhile.  She's hiding and I'm convinced this is part of why."  His voice was barely more than a strained whisper as he added, "I can't just see that and walk away."

"And what about Faith?  I'm sure we'll find her; she can't have gotten very far.  But there's a lot that needs to be said, and at the moment you're the only one she's hearing."

"I'll come looking for you as soon as I can," Angel promised.  "Maybe we'll get lucky and you won't need me to find her.  If so..." he shrugged helplessly, "just keep an eye on her for me till I get home."

Wesley wasn't at all sure this was the best plan; he'd meant it when he said Faith's redemption was currently resting on Angel's shoulders.  Whether the vampire admitted it or not, he'd made a major impact on the girl's life; even the limited amount of care and attention her incarceration permitted him to offer were more than she'd ever known before from anyone but the long dead Mayor.  It was a debt she was obviously eager to repay, even if she did not yet understand that doing 'the right thing' was only half the journey.  Only when she did the right thing simply because it was the right thing would Faith truly be redeemed.

For now, though, it apparently gave Angel hope that she was at least trying, and Wesley didn't want to disturb the fragile balance for either of them.  Or for Buffy, for that matter.  Too much rested on the elder slayer's slender shoulders to risk further upset.

"Of course."  Wesley shrugged and offered a half-hearted smile.  "I'm a Watcher, or I was.  It's what I was trained to do."

"There's a lot more to you than that now, Wes."

The words were spoken quickly, but Wesley could still tell they were more than a perfunctory response.  It was a good feeling to know that Angel saw him as a human being again, maybe even something resembling a friend.  But never would Wesley forget the fury in the vampire's eyes the night Angel tried to kill him, any more than he could erase the trust he had seen in those same eyes just hours earlier when Angel gave Connor to him for safekeeping.  The leap from friend to mortal enemy had been breathtakingly short, but the road back would be a long one, with many more miles to cover before either could rest.

"I can see being around Buffy again is already having an effect on you," Wesley said lightly, heeding the voice in his head that urged caution.  "You're getting sentimental."

Angel grinned, but he didn't try to deny it.  

He was still grinning as he turned around and started up the pathway to the house, but the smile fell away from his face when he confronted the reality of Buffy coming out onto the porch.

She didn't see him at first.  With his dark hair and trademark dark clothing, Angel blended into the night as though it had been created with him in mind, and for once he thought that might be a good thing.  He quietly shifted over to the side of the path and from there to the shelter of a tree, waiting until Buffy had settled down before he made his presence known.

The wait was slightly delayed by the annoying resurgence of Spike, who didn't seem to want to take "I just want to be alone for a while" for an answer.  Angel would have viewed this as more proof of his suspicions if he hadn't been planning on using the same amount of persistence himself.

After what seemed like forever, though in reality was just a few minutes, she was alone again, and likely to be so until Willow and Kennedy came home.  It was the perfect time to talk, or at least Angel thought so.  He had a feeling Buffy would not be so easy to convince.

* * * * *

Spike pounded his way down the basement steps, letting each heavy footfall serve as testimony to the depths of his depression.  The universe deserved to know just how much damage had been done to him this night.

Rona's death should have solved the problem; she was the troublemaker, she was dead... end of problem.  At least that was the way it was supposed to be, but instead things seemed to be getting worse.  Now even Buffy seemed to be turning against him, standing up to him to spare the feelings of Angel's brat.

There had to be a way to put things back to rights.

He could kill Amanda, of course.  He pondered the idea as he paced the length of the basement and back again, and he had to admit that at this particular moment it actually sounded like a lot of fun.  It was certainly no more than the little bint deserved for all the pain she'd caused Buffy.  But it hadn't worked when he tried it with Rona, and he couldn't just keep on knocking them off one by one until he hit the magic one whose death stopped the treachery.  He'd get caught that way.

No, there had to be a better answer.  There had to be catalyst and if he could just find it he... his eyes narrowed.  If he could find her, not it, and he suddenly knew where to find her.  

Faith; she was the answer.  Eliminate her and the 'rebellion' would fall apart and never get put back together.  Buffy didn't like her anyway, so she'd be doubly grateful to get that brown-haired devil out of her hair forever.  And it wasn't like he hadn't killed slayers before, so the mechanics of it weren't a problem.  Hell, he could have killed Buffy a thousand times before... he just hadn't wanted to in a long time.

So right, Faith, she was the problem.  Therefore no Faith should be the solution.

_What could be simpler?_

* * * * *

Buffy was surprised to see Angel approaching the porch, and angered by her surprise.  Usually she could sense him long before he came into view but tonight she was so preoccupied with her own thoughts her sixth sense couldn't get a word in edgewise.

"I thought you caught the nearest white stallion to ride off to Faith's rescue," she called, hoping her sarcasm would hold him at bay.

He shook his head in mock regret.  "Fell off at the gate.  No, make that jumped."

She ruthlessly quashed the flicker of pleasure his presence gave her.  He might as well have chosen Faith over her, for all the good it would do Buffy.  Or at least so she told herself.

"It's late and I'm tired.  I'm not up for another round of Cryptic Quips tonight."  

"And your point is?" he inquired politely as he hovered on the second step from the top.

"That I have a stake and I know how to use it?" she suggested brightly.  Abruptly the smile slipped from her face, betraying how truly worn-out she was.  "Seriously, Angel, I'm just... I'm not up for this tonight."

Only his abiding love for her could have forced Angel's reluctant feet up that last step.   He could see how tired Buffy was, he could hear it in her voice and he could feel it in the energy a slayer naturally radiates and a vampire naturally senses.  The last thing he wanted to do was add to her suffering, but he couldn't leave her not knowing.  He needed to know exactly what happened and she needed to know what might.

"Buffy, I really don't want to make things worse," he said slowly.  "But there's something I have to ask you... and something I have to tell you.  And then I'll go, I swear."

She sighed; she didn't even have the energy to fight anymore.  It was as though Amanda's words, and the unspoken agreement she could see in everyone's eyes, had sucked the life right out of her, leaving only a very weary shell.  

"How many words are we talking about with these 'somethings'?"

He decided to plunge right in; after all, she had said she was tired of games.  

"Has Spike ever... attacked you?"

She stiffened, instantly wondering if he had put things together just from what Xander had said earlier.  In case she was wrong, she decided to play it cool.

"Sure.  For a while there I had the feeling he thought that was why he was put on this earth."  She forced her tight shoulders into a shrug.  "I guess that's a common delusion among vamps."

Angel brushed away her flip answer.  "I don't mean that kind of attack.  I mean..."  He hesitated, because of all the things he'd imagined talking to Buffy about for the last 4 lonely years, this had to be the last one on the list.  "I mean sexually... sort of.  Has he ever tried to..."

"No." 

The word was out before she could stop it, before she even had a chance to really think it through.  But now that it hung there between them she couldn't take it back, and she didn't think she wanted to.  Angel didn't need to know that part of her past; he'd taken himself out of her life by his choice, not hers, so any mistakes she'd made without him were none of his business.  

And what he didn't know couldn't hurt any of them.

"Buffy, are you sure he..."

She stood up so fast the chair crashed backwards into the side of the house.  "Do you think I wouldn't know?" she demanded.  "Do you really think poor naïve little Buffy is too dumb to understand the difference?"

"I never said you were dumb," he protested.  "Or thought it.  But you're the most forgiving person I know.  If you weren't you'd have staked me years ago."

"My bad," she choked out.

"And I know that sometimes you... women... people... can argue themselves into believing that because there was a," Angel gritted his teeth as he growled, "a relationship before, using force doesn't count.  Or maybe they sent the wrong signal, or didn't say 'no' enough, or..."

"Stop," she commanded, holding up her hand to ward him off both physically and emotionally.  "I don't want to hear... I... this subject is closed."  Her hand fell to her side, curling into a fist as she fought for control of her voice.  "I've answered your question, even if you had exactly zero right to ask it, and now I really think you should leave."

He hated believing she would lie to him, and he couldn't even be sure she was; it was just a feeling.  But it was too important of an issue to let go of, even if what he'd feared hadn't happened, because all that meant was it hadn't happened yet.  Before Angel had a chance to choose the right words, though, the front door swung wide and Xander and Robin stepped out, poised for action.

* * * * *

Connor had been plunged into one strange world after another in the past 12 months, and just when he thought he understood the rules his father changed them again.  He should have known by now there was no use in trying to figure things out, but the best he could manage was to keep the majority of his questions to himself.  All except one.  There was one he had to ask, and it took every discipline Holtz had ever drummed into him to keep his silence until he and Cordelia were safely back at the mansion, upstairs, and alone.

They weren't sharing a room; she'd said it would be too awkward with everyone else being so close by.  But she made no objection when he followed her into her bedroom and closed the door behind him.  Connor hoped that meant she wanted to be honest with him as badly as he needed her to be.

"This has been some evening," she sighed as she sank down onto the edge of the bed.  "I'd forgotten how much angst Buffy can pack into just a few short hours."

To Connor it had seemed his father's former girlfriend had been as much on the receiving end of the night's anguish as she had been dealing it out, but he bowed to Cordelia's greater knowledge of the situation.

"She did seem kind of... upset," he allowed as he sat down beside her.  "Which got my father upset, which got her upset, which got..."

"Yup," Cordelia interrupted, "that would be the same old unhappy-go-round."

"Actually everyone seemed pretty tense tonight, even Lorne."  He gently took her hand in his.  "Everyone except you."

She pulled her hand away just as easily as he'd taken possession of it.  "It's not good for the baby, you know.  All that negative energy."  She rubbed her hand over her abdomen.  "I probably shouldn't have even come, but I didn't want to be alone."

"I wouldn't have left you alone," he protested.  "Not unless you wanted to be."  He paused, gauging her mood and remaining reserves, and then decided this was the best opportunity to pose his question.  "Like this afternoon."

Cordelia's expression was carefully bewildered.  "This afternoon?  What are you talking about?"

"When I came here this afternoon to get the book on Heglor demons, you stayed behind at Buffy's to take a nap.  But when I got back... you were gone."

"No I wasn't."

He stared at her in shock as Holtz's voice began whispering in his ear of the perfidies of Woman.  Silently Connor willed her to come up with a reasonable explanation, or even an unreasonable one, just to shame his foster father into stillness.  Anything but the flat-out lie she had just uttered.

"I looked for you.  You weren't in the bedrooms and no one had seen you and..."

"You said you got lost," she interrupted.  "You told Angel you got lost on the way back to Buffy's and it took you ages to find the place again.  Are you telling me you lied to me?  To all of us?"

The accusation in her voice stung Connor, forcing him to backpedal to defend himself.

"I didn't want my father to know you had been wandering around town by yourself," he said uneasily.  "He would have worried."

"So you lied to me?"  Cordelia stood up abruptly, forgetting for a moment that she was supposed to be too awkward and ungainly to move quickly or without assistance.  "Connor, I don't like it when people lie to me.  You know that."

"I... I'm sorry," he stammered.  "I wanted to protect you, not to hurt you."

She leaned down, suddenly the picture of forgiveness as she clasped both his hands in hers.  "Just trust me, Connor; that's all the protection I need."

She was all the protection he needed.  Cordelia had been his only friend since he returned from Quortoth; she was mother, sister, confidante and lover all in one.   If he lost her, he would be all alone.  For Connor, there was no choice.

"I will," he promised.

* * * * *

"Buffy, are you okay?"  

Xander glanced curiously from Buffy's rigid form to Angel standing a few feet away.  Obviously they weren't interrupting a lover's reunion, but it didn't look like a fight either, at least not the kind Buffy and Angel would wage.

"We heard a crash," Robin added uneasily.  He was a little embarrassed to have walked in on an obviously personal moment, but it was too late to bow out without explanation.  

Buffy avoided Xander's gaze and addressed her response to Robin.  "I thought you went home already.  Or are you moving in too?"

He flushed, but the guilt her words inspired made him angry.  Knowing Buffy and her vampire would hear the guilt in his voice made him even angrier.  "I went up to see if Dawn was going to make it to school tomorrow..." he began stiffly.

"She will," Buffy said before Robin could finish speaking.  Her tone left no doubt of Dawn's compliance.

"And then I came down to find the living room deserted."  He jerked his head in Angel's direction.  "Your... friend... here said he'd give me a ride."

"Ride?" Angel said blankly.  "Oh, right."  

He turned and craned his neck to look out at the sky beyond the porch roof, though a moment later he wished he hadn't.  Thick, dark clouds had blotted out the moon, and the only light came from small fissures splitting the western sky.  

"I could say it's a nice night for a walk... but then you'd think I was out to get you."  Angel turned back to Robin with a sheepish grin on his face, "The thing is, I let Fred drive my car back to the mansion, and Wesley and Gunn have his car.  I was going to walk."

Buffy saw her chance to get rid of Angel quickly and without a fuss.  The down side was that it required a certain amount of trust in Robin, and given that he was here when she expressly told him not to be, he might not deserve it.  In the pro column, he obviously hadn't tried anything yet or Dawn would have blurted it out already.  She'd just have to gamble that his instinct for survival was stronger than his appetite for revenge.

After a gentle reminder, of course, that while his idea of revenge had so far proved pretty lame, her imagination was boundless.

"Take my car and drop Robin off on your way," she suggested, keeping her voice steady through sheer force of will.  "I'll come by and get it tomorrow."

Angel's smile disappeared as he began to worry his lower lip with his teeth.  He couldn't leave things like this with Buffy; there was still something that needed to be said.  And yet he had promised the man a ride, and it was about to storm.

"I could bring the car back tonight," he counter-offered, although he already knew what her answer would be.

"I'll get it tomorrow," she said firmly.  "You might not melt in the rain, but I'm thinking one lightning bolt in the wrong place could still make you dust in the wind."  With an achingly sweet smile plastered to her lips, she turned to Robin.  "A force of nature is pretty much the only thing that could kick his butt, or should ever... ever... try."

"Hurricane Buffy, for example," Xander pointed out.  "Now delivering to hell and points south."

For just one instant he felt like his old self, the Xander who could still make jokes about loss and grief because he'd never tasted the bitterness of it himself.  Then he saw the stiff set of Buffy's jaw, and the way she held herself preternaturally still, almost as though she was in pain.  Suddenly all he could think of was the look in Anya's eyes on what should have been their wedding day.

_Why hadn't Buffy ever warned him how much being a grown-up sucked?_

While Xander worked through his issues silently, Angel was forced to confront his in front of an audience.  "Okay, you can pick up the car tomorrow," he conceded with a sigh, "but I can't leave just yet."  

"Actually, yes you can," she said.  "Trust me, you can."

Buffy was pushing him away as hard as she could, but Angel wasn't ready to stop trying to reach her.  Not yet anyway.

"No. I said I had something to tell you, not just ask."

She knew that look; obviously the car had been his last concession of the night.  "Fine, tell," she said wearily, sinking into the chair next to the one she'd overturned.

"Are you sure you want..." he nodded his head at Xander and Robin, "an audience?"

Buffy weighed the idea carefully before she answered.  She didn't want Xander to see Angel as an ally in his 'save Buffy from Spike and from herself' campaign, and she certainly didn't want Robin to know any more about her sex life than he already did.  But there was a good chance Angel's old fashioned manners would keep him from being quite so painfully blunt if he believed he was embarrassing her in front of others.

"I don't have anything to hide," she said at last.  "At least no more than your usual guidance counselor by day/superhero by night."

Angel wasn't happy with the idea, but did his best to smile politely as he agreed.  "An audience it is."

"Oh boy, Story Hour," Xander said, feigning enthusiasm as he settled himself on the porch railing.  "At least with Angel in charge they'll be short ones."

Angel brought his hands together, fingertips pressing against each other in a triangle, and began to pace the short width of the porch.  

"The reason I asked you... that... isn't just because of anything I've heard since I've been here," he began.  "I've known Spike a long time, a lot longer than I like and I..."

Buffy held up her hand again, this time waving her fingers slightly to get Angel's attention.  "This isn't going to be another speech about my rotten taste in men, is it?  Because I've had a lot of those over the years and they're really starting to sound alike."  She bared her teeth in a sickly semblance of a smile.  "Especially the ones about you and Spike."

"Hey, I tried to add a little variety," Xander protested from his end of the porch railing.  "Is it my fault you specialize in the 'proud to be pulse-less' crowd?"

"This is about Spike," Angel answered, working hard to get the words past his clenched jaw.  He didn't bother to look at Xander when he spoke; all his attention was focused on getting through to Buffy. 

"You've let him live under your roof, and I think you have this idea that because he has a soul it's okay.  I mean that he's not dangerous," he added hastily, seeing her stiffen in the chair at the word 'okay.'

"He wouldn't hurt me," she said softly, easing back into the chair.

"You don't know that, or him," Angel insisted.  "A soul wouldn't prevent him from trying to," he choked on the word, and then changed it in deference to their audience, "force himself on you.  It didn't stop him when he was alive and it wouldn't stop him now."

"What are you saying?" she interrupted, her voice low and tight.

"Yeah, what are you saying?" Xander chimed in.  He'd thought Dead Boy missed his cue earlier, but apparently he'd underestimated him.  Now if he could only get through to Buffy where Xander had so far failed.

"I'm saying it's time you faced reality."  

* * * * *

The First Evil had watched from the shadows as the alternate savior of the universe stormed from the Summers' house.  It followed her on her fruitless quest, back as close to the alley where Rona had died as police presence would permit.  And in her restless, angry movements It had seen a new opportunity being born.

Faith had never been a source of much concern for the First.  She was too weak and easily led astray; It actually figured sooner or later Faith would come looking for It, so why bother seeking her out?  Buffy had been the real threat: a slayer who not only refused to play the loner hand Destiny had dealt her, but kept as one of her closest allies a vampire figured in multiple apocalyptic prophecies.  It was enough to make the most daring of demons a little desperate.

Yet just when Buffy's star seemed to be fading, and the traits that had kept her alive and fighting for so much longer than any slayer had a right to expect were being abandoned or twisted out of shape, here was Faith.  Gathering allies, including Buffy's damnable vampire, working with others for a common good... it was disgusting.  It was unnatural. 

It was another way into the heart of the machine.

"Faith!" the First called out softly as It materialized.  "Where's my girl going in such a hurry?"

* * * * *

Angel stopped pacing and came over to squat down next to Buffy's chair.  He wanted to take her hands in his, to offer some sort of comfort, but he was almost afraid to touch her.

"You've always thought that the soul and the demon don't intersect," he said softly.  "I think believing that made things a little easier when Angelus was here, and Giles probably encouraged the idea to help you do what was necessary.  But it's not true, Buffy, no matter how much you want it to be.  There is evil in all of us, soul or no soul."

"You think I don't know that?" she snapped.

He shook his head.  "I think you don't want to.  It's like..." he struggled for an appropriate analogy, "Buffy, it's like alcohol."

"Oh please," she groaned.  "So now your demon is really just the demon rum?"

"There's darkness in everyone," he insisted, forcing himself to ignore her mocking tone.  "Most people keep that piece of themselves locked up in a cage in a corner of their minds, with their souls as the gatekeepers.  Alcohol can open that door for some people... and for others it's a demon."  He leaned forward, looking intently into her hazel eyes.  "The demon is just an appetite for chaos and pain and death – it's not... focused.  It has no plan, no agenda, until it connects with a human host and sets that caged darkness free."

"Look, this is all very gothic and poetic.  Really, Anne Rice would be proud," she assured him as she stood up.  "But you're not telling me anything new here."

In his head Angel could hear Dawn begging him not to push Buffy about Spike; her voice was layered with Cordelia's, warning him about the very same thing.  He knew they meant well, and silently he apologized for being unable heed their wishes.  But at some point silence had ceased to be a peace offering; now it was a weapon poised to destroy someone he would protect above all others.  He had to believe he knew Buffy better than they did.

"I'm telling you that whatever evil was in Spike without a soul is still there," he said stridently.  "It was always there."

Instantly Buffy stood up and took two steps forward, reaching up to slap a hand over his mouth before anything more inflammatory came out.

"Don't talk so loud," she hissed, casting an anxious glance over her shoulder at the front door.

Angel gently removed her hand from his lips and held it for a moment between his own, until she reluctantly pulled it free.

"Buffy, I'm trying to tell you that I know how Spike is with women, how he's always been," he insisted in a quieter tone of voice.  "And it's not good.  He needs to be in control, and if he feels that control slipping... he could become violent.  No," he shook his head, "he will become violent.  It's not a part of the demon, Buffy; it's a part of him.  It's been there since long before he was turned, and it's not going to go away because you're nice to him."

Xander had promised himself that if Angel were able to get through to Buffy where he couldn't that he wouldn't be angry; he would be grateful.  And maybe if he thought the vampire's words were having any effect at all, he would be.  But the way things looked now, he wouldn't have to be noble and forgiving any time soon.

"I've been trying to tell her that for months.  In fact," he smacked his forehead lightly with the heel of his hand, "I'd swear I started telling her that years ago."  He looked hard at Angel.  "About you."

Angel nodded gravely, acknowledging Xander's efforts.  "I know, and you were right, in a way.  Everything Angelus has done he found the inspiration for in me."

"No."  Buffy stubbornly shook her head.  "You're not the same as him.  You've never seen you and then him; you can't.  But I can and I did and I know... you're not him."

Spike was forgotten as she tried yet again to break through the barrier of Angel's guilty conscience to the man hiding behind it.  

"Look, I'm not the issue here."  Angel shunted aside her objections with practiced ease; no one was going to wipe his conscience crystal clear, not even Buffy.  "Angelus specialized in families and I'm already doing such a great job destroying my own even he wouldn't feel the need to wreck yours right now.  But Spike's obsessions have always run to women," he continued, ignoring Buffy's stunned expression, "mostly how to make himself feel superior to them, and that means you're a big threat to him, Buffy.  Soul or no soul, he can't beat you and he knows it."

"This... this is crazy," she sputtered.  _What did he mean about destroying families?  _"You're not making any sense, and you're... well, you're poking around in things that aren't any of your business.  You should just," she waved imperiously at the street, "go home.  Go... somewhere.  Go anywhere that's not here."

Angel stared at her, watching the lightning flare across her face as he tried to find some sign of the girl he'd once known.  He'd been so sure he could get through to her, at least to the point of making Spike move out.  How could he leave her alone with Spike still in that house knowing, despite her protests, that the vampire had attacked her in some way?

"Buffy, you can't let him stay here."  Given the danger involved it should have sounded like a command, but the words came out as more of a strangled plea.  "Now that you know..."

"Know what?" she interrupted.  "That you think he was a creep before he died as much as after?"  She snorted derisively.  "Like you see yourself as Mr. Nothing to Gain from telling me this.  Oh wait, you probably do."

She hated the look of pain in his eyes, a look even the dark night couldn't hide from her.  She hated that look almost as much as she hated herself at the moment, but there was no other choice.  She was doing the right thing, for him and for everyone.  She had to believe that or every choice she'd made so far, every step she'd taken on this path had been for nothing.

"There's more to it than that," he said urgently.  "Before Dru turned him there were a couple unexplained disappearances near Spike's home in London."

"Gee, there were vamps in the area."  Buffy forced the sneer into her voice and onto her lips, though it felt like her face was going to crack.  "I wonder what could have happened to those people?"

"We didn't make people disappear, not even Dru."  He smiled grimly.  "No body means there's nothing for the family to weep over.  What fun is that for a vampire?"

Robin had a brief, unwilling flash of Spike, laughing as he stole the coat off a dead slayer while her 4-year-old son hid and watched.  If ever a vampire had looked like he was enjoying himself, it was Spike that night.

Suddenly the rest of Angel's explanation registered, along with some rather unsavory implications.

"Wait," he said abruptly, "are you saying you knew the vampire that turned Spike?  You were there?"

"I..."

Buffy's hand shot out to grip Angel's arm tightly, silently ordering... begging... him to be quiet while she came up with some half-truth or flat-out lie to allay Robin's suspicions.  

"Angel..." she began.

"...knows Drusilla," Xander jumped in smoothly.  "Sure he does.  We all do, though if you're lucky you'll never meet her."  

He paused for a fraction of a second, trying to work up a long enough spate of babble to give Buffy time to recover.  He didn't know why she turned so white at the principal's question, or what was up with the fingernails he could see digging into Angel's coat sleeve; no one had ever told him the unexpurgated version of Robin's life.  All Xander knew was that Buffy needed help and she needed it fast.  And whatever his past problems with Angel, he didn't want to throw the vampire to the wolves badly enough to throw Buffy in the pen too.

"She's kind of trippy... well, look at her taste in men."  Xander turned up his palms and shrugged, carefully avoiding Buffy's eyes as well as Angel's.  He didn't care so much about hurting Angel's feelings, but he really hoped Buffy understood that there were more important things than her ego at the moment, even if she hadn't told him what those things were.  

"Elvira meets Little Miss Muffett, that's Drusilla.  She, uh, had kind of a crush on me at one point... well, so did most of the girls in school that day... except for Buffy, of course because she was kind of wrapped up in being a rat although before that she..."

"Xander," Buffy broke in, trying to sound annoyed.  "I think we've trawled Memory Lake enough for right now.  It's starting to stink."

In truth she was deeply grateful for Xander's save, but letting that show right now would only undo the good he'd done.  Better to force her frozen fingers to release Angel's arm and try to resume something like a normal conversation.

But Angel, unfortunately, hadn't finished his recounting his X-file.

"We're not just talking generic people," he said, trying to pretend he had never been interrupted, or forced to accept Xander's protection.  "They were all girls.  Young girls, all of good families... families Spike knew.  And all those girls turned up a short time later after an 'unexpected visit with relatives.'  That was code, Buffy," he stressed, "code for things people couldn't talk about then without ruining a girl's reputation."

A cold chill slithered down Buffy's spine.  Spike had once told her she wasn't the first girl he'd attacked; it was as close as he could come to apologizing for not apologizing for what he'd done.  But she'd assumed he was talking about a time in his vampire existence, not his human life.

"You don't know it was him," she said, more in hope than certainty.  

"I don't have proof," he admitted, "but I do know.  I know Spike, and I know the vampire doesn't fall far from the tree."

"I knew it!" Xander said triumphantly.  "Angel's right... two words I never thought I'd live to hear myself say."  He cocked his head to the side, considering a fine point raised by too many years of friendship with one Willow Rosenberg.  "Or is it three words?  Since I was actually saying 'Angel is...' well, you know the rest.  No need to be a martyr and say it twice.  Anyway, you have to get rid of Bleach Boy now, Buff."

She didn't know what to do, where to turn.  Angel's words had thrown the past all out of focus, and for the first time in months she had no idea what the next right move would be.  She needed time, and space; she had to think.

"What I have to do," she said slowly, "is think.  Alone," she stressed.  "I'm not making any decisions or any choices until I have a chance to work this out for myself."

It wasn't remotely what Angel wanted to hear, but he recognized that stubborn set to her jaw even in the reflected glow of lightning.

"All right, I'll go," he conceded.  "I said I would after I told you what I needed to.  I still hope..."

"I know what you're hoping," she said quickly, glancing over her shoulder at the front door.  Her caution cost her a glimpse of Angel's face, however, as he responded to her words.

"I wish I believed that," he murmured.  

* * * * *

She had spun around at the sound of his voice, knowing what she would see, and knowing what it really was, and yet still unable to resist seeing the evidence of her eyes.

"No," Faith protested before she could stop herself.  "You're not going to play mind games with me looking like him."

Mayor Richard Wilkins smiled genially at her the way he had so many times in the old days, the way he looked the last time she saw him.  It gave Faith an almost physical pain to see him like that, after all the times she had imagined his body in charred chunks spread across the ruins of the library floor.  

"What has my Faithie so upset?" he asked, paternal affection coloring every syllable.  "Are those naughty friends of Buffy's calling you names again?  You know they're just jealous because you're the special one."

"You're not him," she said steadily, and tried to believe it.  He... It... looked so much like the Mayor; she had an overwhelming urge to reach out and touch him, just to reassure herself this was all an illusion.  "He's dead and in about a hundred pieces."

"Thousands," the mayor cheerfully corrected her.  "I was much bigger at the end... but you didn't get to see me then, did you?  You were already in a coma, thanks to that nasty Buffy girl and her boyfriend who refused to die."  He shook his head and tisk-tisked at the ill-mannered pair.  

"I am not doing this," Faith announced.  She raised her arms and slashed them in front of her face to wipe away the very sight of him, realizing as she did so that she had left Buffy's house without any weapons.  "I don't have to defend myself to you, and I'm sure as shit not going to defend him."

A frown dimmed pseudo-Mayor Jenkin's bright expression.  "Don't you care for me at all anymore, Faith?  Has she poisoned my best girl against me at last?"

Faith forced herself to turn away, even though it made her skin crawl to put her back to the First.  Despite the intervening years, and all she had learned from Angel about good and evil and the shaded spaces in between, she still couldn't shake the memory of the mayor's kindness to her.  She knew now that it was at least in part because he wanted something from her, but that knowledge couldn't erase history.  He had been the first one to ever truly take care of her; even her mother had required more attention than she had given out in return.  For all his faults... for all his genocidal megalomaniacal faults... he had been supportive and nurturing and giving, and she could never repay him for that.

"Faith!  Faith, where are you?"

She could hear the voices in the distance, calling her name.  Wesley was one; she'd know that accent anywhere.  The other wasn't immediately recognizable, though after a repetition or two she realized it was Gunn.   

"Hmm."  The mayor cocked his head to the side, or at least so Faith assumed.  She still wouldn't look at him, but she knew what the real mayor would have done, and this demon had the impersonation down to an art form.  "I don't hear Angel's voice, do you?"

She hadn't, but she didn't answer anyway.  He didn't need any more ammunition.

"Wouldn't you think he'd come after you too?" Mayor Wilkins continued in the same quiet, reasonable voice she remembered so well.  "He sent Wesley and Gunn, so he must want you back for some reason or another.  But wouldn't you think if he was really so very concerned about you that he'd come himself?"

"He doesn't have... he doesn't need to... I'm not talking to you," she finished stiffly.

"I guess he's busy," the mayor mused.  "I mean you left him at Buffy's house.  Why would he leave her just because you ran off?  So there's a mad killer on the loose, and you're out here all alone and emotionally vulnerable.  That hardly stacks up to a few minutes alone with Buffy, now does it?"

Wesley's voice was coming closer.  "Faith, answer me please!"

Unbidden, a picture formed in Faith's mind.  Angel and Buffy in Buffy's house.  They'd sent the rest of the troops off to find her... they'd sent every last person off to find her... and now, at last, they were alone the way they always wanted to be.  They didn't need her; neither of them ever had.  She was the extra slayer, the spare part in case the _real _slayer broke again.  They all felt that way, not just Buffy and Angel.    Giles, Wesley, Willow, Xander... the whole world saw her as the Vice President of Slaying.  

"You need to show them, Faith."  The mayor's voice had dropped to a near-whisper, the way it sounded in the back of her mind every time she got lonely or afraid.  "You need to remind them who the real slayer is.  Buffy died," he said, dismissing her existence with two short words.  "She died and then Kendra died and then it was your turn, except Little Miss I-Want-To-Be-A-Slayer-And-Have-A-Normal-Life-Too couldn't give up the crown.  Make her give it up now, Faithie.  Show her... show them all who the real slayer is."

"Faith!" Wesley exclaimed as he trotted into sight.  "There are police all around; you really shouldn't be out here."

"Yeah, and you shouldn't have been shouting her name like she was late for dinner, English.  Just how dumb are these Sunnydale cops supposed to be?"  

The Watcher ignored Gunn, focusing his attention on Faith.  "Why didn't you answer?"

Wesley, Faith realized, was talking to her and only her, as though he'd found her alone.  Without even turning around she knew the mayor had vanished.  But still she needed to see for herself that the space behind her was empty.

Because in her head a voice still whispered, and she no longer knew if it was the First's...or her own.

* * * * *

Xander watched Buffy's Explorer pull out if the driveway and head down the street before he turned back to his old friend.

"You lied to him, didn't you?"

"I had to," she said defensively.  "You opened your big mouth and got him suspicious - what else was I supposed to do?"

"Oh, well, you could have... gee, you could've been honest," he suggested.  "I thought part of the whole 'Angel and I are meant for each other' speech had to do with being able to tell him anything."

His sarcasm cut her like a knife, mostly because it was based in fact.  She wanted to believe she could tell Angel anything, and that she had always been able to.  She'd shared more of herself with him than anyone else - that much she could truthfully say.  

But even back when they were together and she was still fighting her slayer destiny at every turn, Buffy already knew that to trust anyone with all her deepest secrets would be endangering them with the same.  Even Angel was only immortal up to a point.  Literally.

"Not this," she hissed.  "You don't know what he would do!"

"I think I've got a pretty good idea," he countered.  "And frankly I'd like to help.  You know, offer him a cup of blood between rounds, or maybe just hand him the stake."

Ten minutes ago she could have kissed Xander for protecting Angel from Robin, but at this very moment Buffy wanted nothing more than to stomp her feet and scream to the night about how insensitive he was.  How could he have known her for so long, shared so much with her, and yet still understand so little about her?  And how he could think and say the things he did about her relationship with Spike, and still call her his friend?  

"This is none of your business, Xander.  This is my," she stabbed a finger at her chest as she emphasized, "my life.  Don't you have one of your own to mess up?"  She glanced pointedly around the otherwise empty porch.  "I don't see Anya anywhere around here; are you two finally settled on not settling down?"

With a guilty start, Xander remembered Anya and her mysterious, possibly demonic, plans for the evening.  When he got back to Buffy's earlier that night he'd found two messages she left on the pager he'd forgotten to wear, but they were contradictory and confusing, in a typical Anya fashion.  'Get over here, I need you' and 'I'm mad at you.  Don't call me till I call you.'  Where was he supposed to go from there?

The truth was, he was afraid to go anywhere.  Afraid of getting stuck in the middle again, caught between Anya's needs and Buffy's.  He loved both of them, in different ways, but even when they didn't ask him to choose between them he still felt torn.

Unfortunately the irony of the situation escaped him entirely.

"Anya has her own life too," he said defensively.  "She has more going on than demon-hunting, that's all."

Buffy raised an eyebrow.  "Sure, if you count demon-being." 

"Who are you?" he asked in dismay.  "I've spent the bloodiest, if not the biggest, chunk of my life with you and now I feel like I'm looking at a stranger.  Or maybe the Buffy Bot come back from cyber-oblivion."

"Who am I?" she snapped.  "I'm the one whose house you're living in, the one whose food you eat every day.  Starting to ring any bells?"

She couldn't believe she'd said that; she couldn't believe she'd even thought it.  Crowded as the house was, it meant the world to her that her friends were standing beside her.  If nothing else, they usually also stood between she and Dawn, bridging the gap Joyce's death had created.

"I try to pay my way, Buff," he said quietly.  "You know I do.  And as for living in your spacious dining room... I'm there for the same reason Willow hasn't left yet.  Do you really think it's easy for her to live in the house where Tara died?  But she loves you, just like I do."  He leaned forward, as though closing the physical gap between them could narrow the emotional one as well.  "And she's just as scared for you as I am."

There were actually tears in Xander's eye.  Buffy could see them, but she almost couldn't believe them.  Xander was too strong to cry; he found his way out using jokes and laughter.  Only Buffy was weak enough to need to cry over things that couldn't be helped.

"Well stop!" she burst out.  "I mean... I don't mean move out kind of 'stop'... but I'm a big girl and I know what I'm doing.  With Angel... and with Spike.  I know them better than you do, Xander, way better.  And I know what I'm doing."

"So you know you're driving everyone away, even Willow?  Even Giles?"

"Giles is doing his duty," she said quietly.  She tried to keep the bitterness from her voice... after all these months of half-truths and hidden motivations it should have been easy... but some crept out around the edges of her tired voice.  "He's rounding up potential slayers like a sheep dog with an attendance sheet.  He doesn't need me to keep him away."

He didn't need an explanation either, a rebellious voice grumbled in her ear.  He shouldn't anyway, after all the times he was completely astonished by Joyce's capacity for denial.  But put the fib on the other foot and Giles was as clueless as Harmony in a physics class.

"He needs you to say you need him," Xander explained, interrupting her inner diatribe.  "He needs what we all need – just some kind of feeling that you think we're here for more than just decoration."

Things had gone too far, much further than she had intended.  Buffy knew this was Xander's way, hiding behind jokes and holding everything inside for as long as he could.  Then when he finally let it all loose, he pushed and pushed until she had to push back or die.  

But there was still time to take a step back, away from all this messy and dangerous emotionalism, before someone got hurt.

"But you're so very decorative, Xander," she purred.  

Buffy was smiling coquettishly at him, the way Xander would have literally killed to see her do just a few short years ago.  All the smile raised in him now, though, was a deep sadness at the effort it obviously took her to summon it.

"It's all the egg on my face," he said quietly.  Slowly, painfully, he straightened up.  "Yellow always brightens up a room."

"Xander..."

She reached out to him then, but it was too late.  He took a step sideways to avoid her hand and then skirted around her chair, remaining carefully out of reach.  

"I'm gonna go in now and try to spread my happiness around," he mumbled.  "That's why I'm here, right?  Xander the human joke machine, able to quip a demon to death at 50 paces.  You gotta go with your strengths."

* * * * *

Wesley strode into the Great Hall close on Faith's heels.  The Slayer had been uncharacteristically silent on the trip back to the mansion, but he had not been so foolish as to believe that indicated any peace of mind.  When she slid out of the car before he'd even brought it to a complete stop, he knew he had his work cut out for him.

"Faith, wait!" he called.  "I need to talk to you, and so does Angel."

She paused in her flight, one foot raised over the first riser of the staircase, but she didn't turn to look at him.   "Angel missed the bus, Wes."

"He had something he needed to do," the Watcher replied evasively.  "But he said he needed to speak with you when he gets here."

Faith turned, slowly and deliberately, until she was looking him straight in the eye.  "After he gets finished building Buffy back up, you mean."  She shook her head and forced a chuckle from her dry throat.  "Poor Angel.  Here he thinks his destiny is the destruction of evil and instead he's in charge of the reconstruction of ego."

"Are you referring to Buffy's or your own?" Wesley asked dryly.

"Hey, I've got no problem with him playing doctor with B, whatever boo-boo she thinks needs kissing now."  She crossed her arms over her chest, not realizing how vulnerable she suddenly appeared to Wesley.  "But I'm not waiting up for him to finish the physical."

"I wouldn't," Gunn advised as he walked in the door.  "Looks to me like the man is going to be putting in some serious overtime."

She seized the diversion with deep gratitude.  If they could shift the conversation over to Angel's love life, or better yet, Gunn's, she could ease herself out without sending up any warning flags.

"The glory of love, pal.  You wanna play, you gotta pay."

Gunn made a show of rifling through his pants pockets, ultimately pulling out his hands and holding them out towards Faith, empty palms facing up.

"No wonder I'm always broke."

"If you please, Faith."  

Wesley's sharp voice cut through their banter, reminding Gunn, if not Faith, that not everyone was lucky enough to have a loved one to fight with.  Gunn quickly excused himself and headed upstairs to find out how much trouble he was in with Fred.  Faith remained poised at the foot of the staircase, one hand on the banister.

"Jeeze, Wes, we were just talking," she complained.  She was not going down without a fight.  "Gunn told me Angelus killed your lady lawyer, and I'm really sorry about that, but..."

"This has nothing to do with Lilah," he answered sharply.  "And I would appreciate it if you didn't mention her again."  Wesley stopped to draw a shuddering breath; he was truly surprised at how angry Faith's casual mention of Lilah's death had upset him.  To cover his unexpected revelation, he added, "At the very least, don't say anything until Angel has regained his memory.  He still has no idea what Angelus did."

"Hey, I actually am sorry.  Honest.  I didn't realize you two were that close.  I mean nobody said..."

"I believe I just asked you to stop talking about her."  

His tone was arctic this time, leaving Faith in no doubt that she had overstepped bounds in her attempt to escape a lecture.  

"Oh... yeah.  Sorry."  

Faith subsided into a rare, embarrassed silence, a situation Wesley decided to use to his advantage.

"I think you and I have a few things to discuss while we wait for Angel."  He waved at the couches by the fireplace.  "Please, Faith.  Spare me a few minutes and I think I can make things a little easier for you."

"I thought Willow was the Abracadabra Kid," she scoffed, recovering some of her customary bravado.  

Inwardly Wesley sighed, but he carefully kept all expressions of impatience from his face and voice.  In some ways Faith had been easier to deal with during her psychotic episodes – at least then she'd known exactly what she was looking for out of life.  

"This has nothing to do with magic," he assured her.  "It has to do with a lifetime of studying slayer history."

"Oh, I've been off book for years now, Wes."  

But even as she protested, Faith was drifting towards the fireplace.  If Wesley had anything in his Watcher's songbook that might wipe away some of the old, bad feelings, she was going to go for it.

* * * * *

Willow didn't see Buffy standing on the porch as she and Kennedy approached; she was trying too hard to listen to her lover to have any attention to spare.  The younger girl had been chattering nervously almost non-stop since Willow had placed the 911 call, and Willow was beginning to wonder if there was a word in the English language Kennedy hadn't tried on for size.  It should have been irritating, but it wasn't.  Willow was willing to seize any distraction from her own thoughts that she could get.

"Hey," Buffy called softly when the couple started up the steps.

"Buffy," Willow responded in surprise.  "What are you doing out here?"

"Waiting up, Mom?" Kennedy teased.  She would have said more, but Willow's elbow in her ribs was a hint she couldn't miss.

Buffy shuffled her feet and ran a hand through her hair, groping for words that had once come so easily to her_.  Xander's abrupt departure... departures... had made her desperate to salvage something from the night and from the mess that was her life.  Dangerous as it was, she needed to rescue some fraction of who she once was from the carnage and preserve it, in case she ever found her way out of the tunnel. But it was so hard, so very much harder than she remembered. _

_When had she lost the ability to just say she cared?_

"I, uh, just wanted to see how things went.  With the police and all.  Did they... did they believe you?  About Rona, I mean."

Willow and Kennedy shared a questioning glance before Willow answered her.  "It was fine.  Okay, that is; it was okay.  They... they believed what we told them."

"Well some of it was true," Kennedy said.  She leaned up against the railing, ready to keep on talking all night if she had to, if it would help to keep the mental image of Rona laying lifelessly in a dark alley from her head.  "We said we were out for a walk... and we were.  We just didn't say we were trying to find demons to wail on while we were out there."

"I'm really sorry you guys had to go through that.  I wish..." Buffy struggled to put the wishes she could share into words, but the best she could come up with was, "I wish I hadn't let Faith near any of these girls.  It was a big mistake."

"Buffy, don't."  Willow quickly climbed the porch steps and approached her best friend, hoping that Buffy wouldn't pull away the way she had so many times in the past few years.  "It wasn't your fault.  I don't even think it was really Faith's fault, though you know I'd love to be able to say it was.  Boy would I love that.  I mean really."

She smiled teasingly at Buffy, trying to lighten her best friend's load with a reminder of the experiences they had survived together.  But neither the slayer nor the woman in Buffy was ready to accept comfort.

"It was her fault," Buffy insisted.  "Mine too.  She can't be trusted."  The slayer balled her right hand into a fist as she clung desperately to the porch railing with her left.  "I don't know why I let Angel convince me that she could."

Willow smiled ruefully.  If Buffy had inherited one thing from Joyce, it was her gift for ignoring the obvious.

"I know why."

"It's basically a 'duh'," Kennedy agreed.  "He does puppy eyes, cue the violins and watch Buffy turn into a puddle of slayer slush."

Willow turned to her girlfriend and dragged her up the last step onto the porch.  "Kennedy, why don't you go upstairs?" she suggested, in a tone that said this was not really a suggestion.  "It's really late."

Kennedy wanted to argue the point, or argue any point that would keep her from having a moment to herself to think.  But she'd known Willow long enough to pick up certain signs, and right now the witch was flashing a bright red neon one that said 'You're not helping.'

"Yeah, it is sort of late," the SIT said instead.  "And it's been a big... umm, it's been a really... it's night.  And it's late at night. So goodnight."

By unspoken agreement, Willow and Buffy didn't say another word until they heard Kennedy's footsteps on the stairs inside.  Then, as one, they moved to the steps and sat down.

"So it was really okay?" Buffy finally asked.  "I know how hard it can be, trying to tell what you know without actually telling what you know.  We want this guy... or this thing... caught, but we can't let anyone else get hurt doing it, so..."

"I get it, Buffy," Willow interrupted.  "We were careful, I swear.  We told them everything we could, which wasn't much, and then we played dumb."  She shrugged.  "Maybe I have an inner blonde or something, because they bought it."

"Hey!" the Slayer exclaimed, playfully punching her friend's arm.  "I have a very hard time playing dumb, I'll have you know."

Willow abruptly sobered.  "I do know," she said softly.

Buffy sensed the conversation was veering into her personal life and choices, as so many conversations with Willow and Xander tended to do.  This time, though, she intended to stop it before it even got started.

"I won't let Faith near the girls again, I swear.  No matter what Angel says, or how high he turns up the wattage on those baby browns I won't..."

"Buffy, just stop it!" Willow burst out.  "Stop talking about Faith like this is all about her, because it's not.  It's about Rona."

"Not you too," Buffy said in disbelief.  She thought that if there was one person she could trust to be on her side... at least one she hadn't already pushed away or insulted yet tonight... it was Willow.  "Listen, I didn't wait here to get another interpretation of the riot act."

"Then why did you wait up?" Willow challenged her.

"I was worried about you," Buffy said awkwardly.  "I thought... I thought maybe you'd want to talk.  And maybe, even as close as you and Kennedy have become, that she wasn't someone who could really understand yet, because she hasn't seen what we've seen."

It was the most honest and open thing Willow had heard Buffy say in a very long time, and it left her almost afraid to answer for fear of spoiling the moment.  

"That's really sweet," she said softly.  "Thank you."

Buffy reached out and impulsively grabbed Willow's hand.  She half expected her friend to withdraw, as Xander had earlier, but somehow she must have said or done the right thing this time because Willow stayed right beside her.

"I just want you to know I'm here," Buffy said.  "In case you need me to be."

Willow looked off into the distance.  "I kind of do," she admitted, almost under her breath.  "I've been trying to avoid something all night, and I can try to keep on avoiding it but sooner or later I'm going to have to go up to my room and she'll be there and I won't be able to avoid it anymore."  She sighed.  "I won't be able to avoid her anymore."

"Willow, what are you talking about?"  Buffy gripped her friend's hand tighter as she leaned forward to peer into Willow's face.  "Why would you want to avoid Kennedy?  You do mean Kennedy, don't you?"

Willow nodded, her face a study in quiet misery.  "That's exactly who I mean, and I'm just the most horrible person on earth because of it."

"You are not," Buffy said indignantly.

"Yes, I am.  I should be so happy that she's up there waiting for me.  That someone... anyone... is up there waiting for me.  I mean Rona died tonight and it could just as easily have been Kennedy and I should be so grateful that it wasn't.  I am," she added hastily, suddenly realizing her words had come out wrong.  "I don't want Kennedy to be dead any more than I wanted Rona to be dead.  I just..." she sighed, "I realized I just don't really want it any less either."

"Okay now the blonde must be getting the best of me," Buffy complained, "because color me confused."

"I want Kennedy to be alive," Willow explained slowly, feeling her way through the emotions.  "I want her to be alive and happy and healthy and... and just to be, I guess.  But it's not going to break me if she isn't.  If that had been her tonight instead of Rona, I would have cried.  And I would have hurt.  But I wouldn't have been empty... not like I was when Tara..."

"When Tara died," Buffy finished for her.  She realized in a flash what Willow was trying to say, because she'd felt it herself when Riley's chip had started to malfunction.  She'd been afraid of losing him, and she had hurt for all the things he would miss if he died so young, but she never thought she would die if he did.  Not the way she'd felt that lost lonely summer in LA after she sent Angel to hell.

"I care about Kennedy," Willow whispered.  "She's fun, and she's had all these experiences I've never had and seen all these things and places I might never get to see.  She makes me happy like I thought I wouldn't ever be again.  But she doesn't... complete me."  Her gaze dropped to the wooden step beneath her sneakered feet.  "I thought it didn't matter, when I let myself think it at all.  But tonight, thinking about all the stuff that could happen in the next few weeks, and thinking about all the stuff that's happened so far... I realized I don't want to settle."

In Buffy's experience, settling was almost worse than being alone.  Almost.  Still, while Kennedy wasn't anything like a female version of Parker Abrams, Buffy couldn't quite rate her at Riley levels either.  Willow might just be better off waiting for a second chance at "the real thing," even if she never did come along.

"You shouldn't have to settle.  Life's too short, right?"  Buffy resolutely closed her mind to the dark days when that idea had not seemed so bad.  "Especially when you hang with slayers."

"I don't know if I'll ever fall in love again like I was with Tara, but maybe I'm not supposed to.  Maybe it's supposed to be different."  Willow raised her head to look squarely at Buffy, even as she was looking squarely at herself for the first time in months.  "I'm just never going to find out if I don't take the chance."

"And Kennedy's not that chance?"

Willow thought about it for a long moment, in a way she hadn't allowed herself to do until now.

"No," she said finally.  "Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe I should give it more time to see, but..."

"It won't change," Buffy assured her, wishing she hadn't had the experiences to back up her statement.  "I think maybe love can grow when you're not looking, but when you look back you realize it was always there underneath, that little spark.  But you've had something happen tonight that should have lit up that little spark like a firecracker and..." she snapped her fingers, "nothing."

"Nada," Willow agreed sadly.  

Buffy impulsively leaned over and wrapped her arms around Willow, giving her friend the hug she so obviously needed.  Willow was surprised, but grateful.

"I'm sorry, Wills.  I really wanted things to work out for you this time."  

"I'll be okay," Willow mumbled into the Slayer's hair.  "I've still got school, and Xander and Dawnie... and you."

Buffy heard the slight hesitancy over her inclusion in that short list and she pulled back to look her best friend in the eye as she reassured her.  She hadn't reached out to Xander in time, and she couldn't let herself even try to reach Angel, but she wasn't going to let the chance slip away with Willow too.

"You do, you know.  Have me.  I may not always seem all there, but I'm still here, right here, when you need me."

Willow smiled quietly.  Despite the horror of the evening and the tearful confrontation that still lay ahead, she had her best friend back, in a way she hadn't felt since long before Buffy died.  They were connecting like they used to, and that made up for so much of the connections she had lost or imagined she ever had.

"Yeah, I guess you are.  Thanks."

"So you're going to tell her tonight?"

"I guess I should," Willow answered after a pause to consider the question.  "I mean it's probably wrong not to.  But maybe this isn't the time, not when we're staying in the same house and she can't afford to be distracted because even focused full-fledged slayers can die so who knows what will happen to a potential..."

"Will, breathe," Buffy instructed.  

Willow took a long gulp of air, and then another as she tried to push away the ghosts her words had summoned.  Kennedy wasn't Buffy, not even close, and this wasn't anything like history repeating itself.  But a few words from Anya voiced in the aftershock of Buffy's death, had given birth to a tiny disloyal voice Willow had never been able to completely silence.  

Buffy's mother was dead and her father might as well have been for all the interest he took in his daughters.  Angel was gone from her life, supposedly for her good, and Riley had left admittedly for his own.  Her college experience ended almost before it began and her career as a slayer gave her nothing to look forward to but dying, in the next battle if not in this one.  Was it really such a surprise that when Buffy decided to do 'anything' to protect Dawn from Glory, death wasn't the worst 'anything' she could think of?

Then the moon broke free of the clouds, giving her a glimpse of Buffy's worried hazel eyes, and Willow knew she could never explain her fears to Buffy.  Whatever her reasons had been for taking that final step off Glory's tower, the Slayer would never let herself share any more of them than she already had.  Moreover, she would be deeply hurt if she knew Willow had suspicions of her own.  

"Sorry," Willow apologized with a little laugh she'd dragged out to cover her fears.  "I've never really been the dumper before; it's kind of scary."

Buffy had a brief, ugly flash of memory, of slimy bubble bath gel greasing the soles of her feet and a choking haze of perfumed talcum powder and a ringing in her ears that couldn't drown out his voice.

_//Let it go.  Let yourself love me.//_

She shook off the instant replay with effort, and not a little fear.  She hadn't allowed that memory to surface in months, taking pride in the way she kept it locked in the smallest corner of her mind where it couldn't hurt or hinder her.  Now when she could least afford it, something, or rather someone had shaken it loose.

"Yeah," she replied hoarsely, "scary."

* * * * *

Angel tried to be quiet when he walked into the Great Hall, but the wind grabbed the door from his hands before he could stop it and slammed it against the wall.  He caught it on the backswing and gently closed it, muttering an apology over his shoulder.

"It's quite all right," Wesley called from in front of the fire.  "Cordelia might be asleep, but everyone else has been roaming the halls like Lady MacBeth in search of a hand towel."

Angel shot a quick guilty glance at the stairs leading to the second floor.  "Is Faith still up?  You did find her, right?" 

"Of course.  We'd still be out looking if we hadn't."  Wesley looked him up and down, taking in Angel's uncharacteristically nervous gestures and the anxious tone in his voice.  "Speaking of, why aren't you out looking for us?"

The vampire shrugged, using the gesture as both an expression and a way to slide off his duster.  "I thought I'd try here first."

"Good heavens, have you been talking to Buffy all this time?  You must have gotten further with her than I expected."  Much further, really, since Wesley had expected Buffy to put either a door or a fist in Angel's face after the first five minutes.

"Not far enough," Angel muttered.  

He started to come further into the room and then hesitated, staring up at the staircase as he weighed the benefits of confronting Faith now when the memories were fresh against the advantage of allowing her to gain perspective overnight.  In the end time won out and he crossed the room to join Wesley by the fireplace.  

"Actually I spent part of the time giving Buffy's boss a ride home."  He grimaced at the memory of the brief but exceedingly chilly ride.  "And wasn't that a treat?  That guy really, really doesn't like me."

"Are you sure you're not just feeling a little... insecure, perhaps?" Wesley asked gently.  "After having to witness her behavior around Spike, it's possible that you're..."

"It's not that," Angel interrupted.  "I mean maybe it would be if I thought she was interested too, but...it's not that," he finished with an emphatic shake of his dark head.  "He doesn't like me.  Period, end of story. 

"Then why on earth did you give him a lift?"  Another puzzle quickly shot through Wesley's brain.  "And how?" 

Angel sat down on the couch with a sigh he tried to disguise as a yawn.  He didn't know why his car-related concession bothered him so much; it wasn't the latest in his list of failed negotiations, and it certainly wasn't the largest.  It was just the most pathetic.

"Buffy lent me her car.  She's coming by tomorrow morning... make that this morning... to pick it up."

Wesley immediately brightened; perhaps things were turning around in his favor after all.

"Is she?  That will make things much easier."

"Excuse me?"

"I need to talk to her," Wesley explained.  "I'm not doing terribly well at it these days, but maybe with enough practice I'll get it right.  Or," he sighed, "perhaps not."

"I hear you," Angel said fervently.  His own recent experiences as a counselor were making him long for the days when people just repressed and moved on.  "So how is Faith?  Did you manage to get through to her?"

"Somewhat."  Wesley shifted uncomfortably on the sofa.  "I did convince her that no one could seriously believe she killed that girl..."

"Rona," Angel prompted.  Every time someone called her 'that girl' it gave him a sick feeling, almost like a premonition, that someday Connor's broken lifeless body would be referred to just as casually.

"Rona, yes.  I reminded her that she was in the company of the two other girls the entire time they were looking for Rona, and Anya was also with them when Rona actually went missing."

"So then she's okay."  Angel relaxed for the first time in what seemed like days, although the emotion was to be short-lived.

"If you can envision a time when that description legitimately applies to Faith, you've a better imagination than I gave you credit for.  She still blames herself for the girl's death, and seriously resents the fact that she blames herself."

The vampire was up and on the move again, ranging back and forth in front of the fire as he tried to work out a solution.  There had to be a space for Faith somewhere between crippling guilt and criminal negligence.

"I want her to feel responsible for those girls," he explained.  "It's not fair that it all falls on Buffy.  But Faith doesn't do well with guilt; she never has."

Wesley laughed sharply, one hand rising to massage the collarbone that had never healed properly.

"I remember."

"What else did you say to her?"

The Watcher turned his head, carefully avoiding any connection with Angel's penetrating gaze.  "I... I'd rather not say," he replied cautiously.  "First I want to see if it has any more effect on Buffy than it did on Faith."

Angel stopped short in surprise.  "You're going to try the same speech on Buffy that you did on Faith?"

"It's not a speech," Wesley protested.  "It is an observation, based on years of careful study.  And I believe it applies equally to both of them, though for different reasons."

"Oh this I've got to hear."  

"After," Wesley promised.  "I'm hoping Buffy in particular will take it to heart.  For Faith I found it an offer of hope, but for Buffy..." He paused and then plunged ahead, "for Buffy it's more of a warning.  One I hope she will heed before it's too late."

"Now you have to tell me."  All traces of mockery had vanished from Angel's voice, leaving only the ragged undertones.

A moment too late, Wesley could see where his friend's mind had leaped and why.  "It's not that kind of warning," he quickly reassured Angel.  "I haven't read any prophecies or spoken to any emissaries from the other side.  It's just a warning about the path she has chosen and where it may lead."

Angel wasn't happy with Wesley's evasions, but he could tell he wasn't going to get anything more out of the Watcher without the application of brute force.  He had to place his faith in Wesley and the fragile trust being rebuilt between them, though his heart was screaming against it.

"Buffy doesn't like warnings," he said, wearily sinking back down onto the sofa.  "Of course she's not too wild about surprises either."

"Where, pray tell, is the middle ground?"

"Nowhere in Sunnydale," the vampire replied grimly. 

* * * * *

Faith tossed and turned in her bed, and finally gave up sleep altogether to begin pacing the length of her room.  It was considerably larger, and much better furnished than her cell, but it still gave her the feeling of being trapped.

Angel was downstairs; she'd heard the door bang when he came in, and she knew none of the mansion's other occupants were still abroad.  She could go downstairs and face him, dealing with the fact that she had not only disappointed him with her failure, but then allowed it to become a source of contention between he and Buffy.  She could... but she really didn't want to. 

Maybe there was something to all that junk Wesley had thrown at her after all.  It certainly wasn't any state secret that she wasn't used to being responsible for people; even when she became a slayer she'd known that there was someone else there if she screwed up.  So slayers weren't supposed to make good leaders - big deal.  She'd always figured she didn't have to be any kind of leader, good or bad.  That was B's job.  

Now, though, there were a bunch of girls... Ghosts of Slayers Yet to Be... who needed someone to show them the way, and even B wasn't up to the challenge anymore.  Except Angel thought they both were, and even if he thought he was more in the owing column when it came to Buffy, Faith was still way in his debt.  She owed him more than her best for all that he'd done for her, and she was going to pay him back if it killed her.  Or the SITs.  Or possibly him.  

Starting tomorrow.

That decided, Faith crawled back into bed and closed her eyes, sure she would be able to sleep now.  All she had to do was make the Mayor shut up.  Sad to say, she couldn't even blame the First this time, not really.  The Mayor was nowhere in sight, only in sound, chirping away in her head about all the wasted time Angel spent comforting Buffy when he could have been helping her find the killer and clear her name.  _Buffy had friends and family around her dying to help and she could care less_, Mayor Wilkins murmured, _while Faith had only Angel and she didn't even really have him once Buffy walked into the room, or called on the phone, or was mentioned by someone in casual conversation._

Faith hated little voices in her head, and she hated it even more when she was pretty sure they were right.

* * * * *

The fire had burned low, and dawn was uncomfortably close when Angel and Wesley finished planning the next few nights of patrolling.  They would have to be even more careful now as they sought out demons who might lead them to the First, in order to avoid all contact with the police as they investigated Rona's murder.  And, of course, there was also the killer to be contended with, and the possibility that Rona had not been the only one targeted.  It all made for a long night, and it was with mutual relief that the men rose at last to head up for a well-earned rest.

"Good, then we're all set."  Wesley started towards the staircase, trying not to stumble in his weariness.  "In the morning, which is to say now, we'll..."

"Damn!"  Angel snapped his fingers.  "Sorry, Wes, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I just realized I never got the chance to ask Faith about the phone call.  I'll have to corner her tomorrow."

Wesley turned back to face Angel, forcing his face into an expression of polite curiosity although he wanted nothing more than to crawl into his nice quiet bed and not come out until the apocalypse after next.  

"What phone call?"

"The one she... never mind."  Angel ran his hand through his hair and blew an impatient sigh that somehow turned into a soft growl.  "What a mess this night has been.  That poor... Rona... and now Faith... and that principal."  

He growled on the last word, causing Wesley's lips to twitch in a ghost of a smile.

"He really got to you, didn't he?  What did he say?"

Angel reflected unhappily on Robin's childhood reminiscences, but he didn't feel up to sharing them, at least not yet.

"It wasn't what he said...," the vampire hedged.  "Well, yes it was, but he's entitled.  I mean he has no reason to like or trust me."  Honesty made him add, "Actually he's got even less reason than he knows."

There were few things Wesley enjoyed more than a good mystery, even in his current state of exhaustion.  "Now you have my attention.  Do tell."

Angel waved away his request impatiently.  "Later.  The point is: he's entitled."  He resumed his restless pacing, trying to turn his back literally and figuratively on the memories Robin had stirred up.  "But I still don't like him."

Wesley was definitely curious now, but he could tell he would learn no more from Angel on this score tonight.  With regret he abandoned the promising segue and headed straight for what he believed to be the root of Angel's problem.

"You very carefully avoided the subject earlier, but I take it Buffy didn't want to hear what you had to say."

Angel shot him a sharp look, which Wesley met with a blandly innocent smile that didn't fool the vampire for an instant.

"No," he admitted, "the only thing she wanted to hear from me was the word 'goodbye'."

"Is it anything I need to know?"

Angel wanted to share the burden with Wesley, but he couldn't.  It wasn't that he believed Buffy had been telling the truth and there was no problem; he just couldn't betray her secrets like that.  Particularly secrets she wouldn't even share with him.  The best he could manage was a half-truth to serve as warning.

"Nothing except that Spike is as dangerous with a soul as without."

The Watcher smiled tightly.  "Allow me to rephrase the question.  Is there anything I need to know that I don't already?"

"Hallelujah!"  Angel walked in a small circle, hands raised in homage to the power that gifted him with a friend who knew the truth.  "So you do see it?"  

"Of course."

Angel was gratified to see that Wesley actually appeared surprised by the question.  "Of course," he echoed the Watcher.  "Of course you do, and so do I.  I'm pretty sure Gunn sees..."

"Oh yes," Wesley broke in to assure him, thinking back on Gunn's earlier comment about garbage.

"I _know_ Xander sees it," Angel continued in a voice that radiated certainty.  "And that principal.  And Lorne.  It must be a guy thing."  He stopped abruptly as an ugly thought occurred to him, a chance that there was one who might not see the truth because it painted Angel in a kinder light by comparison.  "Oh God, do you think Connor sees it?  Because Spike could really do a number on him if..."

"I will take care of it," Wesley said quickly.  "I won't let him poison Connor against you."

"More against me," Connor's father grimly corrected him.  "We have enough infighting going on already; we don't need to start working on the Greek tragedies again."

"No," Wesley agreed with deep regret.  "We have quite enough home-grown ones."

* * * * *

Buffy didn't fall asleep until almost dawn, too caught up in cataloguing the various battlefields her life had become.  But when sleep finally claimed her it was worth it; she had the green dream again.  

Buffy had only had the dream a few times, beginning after she'd been forcibly removed from Heaven, but being in the dream was almost like being back in Paradise.  The grass was an impossibly green shade of green, not one but two suns shone up in the sky... and Angel was with her.  A boyish, happy, _sunlit_ Angel.

The dream never lasted long, at least not long enough.  They held each other and talked and kissed... and then it was always over and she was alone.  

This time, though, before reality claimed her she caught a glimpse of other people on the borders of her dreamscape.  It was a surprise, but not so much as when she realized that she had seen them before, both in the dreams and in her waking hours.  Wesley was a weird, and frankly disturbing, addition to her cast of dream characters, but at least she could understand why she knew what he looked like.  It was harder to explain the others, though; she was almost certain it was the shock that spun her from her lover's arms and sent her reeling into dizzying consciousness.

Why hadn't she remembered that Gunn and Fred had been in her dreams all along?  And how had she known exactly what they looked like long before they ever met?

* * * * *

The morning left Buffy little time to ponder her dream or its implications.  She had to hurry through her usual routine at double speed in order to allow time to run over to the mansion to retrieve her car.  Fortunately Willow didn't have classes until 11, and Andrew seemed to be channeling something other than Radio-Free Warren for the moment, so her kitchen duties could be easily reassigned.  Less simple to avoid were Xander's lingering distance, and the coolness of some of the SITs.  Some of them only spoke when spoken to, others tried too hard to be sociable and others didn't show for breakfast at all.  

Buffy tried not to take it to heart, but it hurt to feel the change in the air.  She told herself it was only temporary, that it just started last night so it couldn't run very deep or last very long.  But every time she saw Xander's glance slide away from her to stare at a raised spot on the wallpaper, she had the sinking sensation that emotions had been bubbling beneath everyone's surface for a very long time and only now was she seeing the blisters.  

She escaped the house with regrettable relief, although she was equally uneasy about what kind of reception she would receive at the mansion.

* * * * *

Normally Buffy would have tagged Cordy as the queen of late sleepers, but as it turned out her old rival was the only one up and about when she arrived.  Despite the fact that a groggy Cordy was a pleasanter Cordy, she still wasn't exactly who Buffy wanted to face at 7:30 in the morning, on a day when she hadn't had time to put on make-up.  It was, however, definitely better than facing Angel.

Or at least that's what Buffy told herself.

She told herself that all day long, as she dealt with her students' problems and found subtle ways to remind Robin of the penalties for inappropriate Angel-ward behavior.  She told herself that through a tense afternoon training session with the SITs and a mostly silent dinner, and she all but shouted it to herself when Angel & Co. showed up after dinner ready for patrol.

"Patrol?" she repeated.  Her voice rang with disbelief.  "Does that word mean something different in Lorne's dimension and you just came over to share that with us?  Because I know it can't mean you actually think I'm going to try the buddy system again."

"Before anyone goes anywhere," Wesley began firmly, "I really need to speak with you Buffy.  I think there's some things you should hear."

"Me too," she said brightly.  "Things like 'see ya' and 'we'll just be going now' and..."

"You can't expect to go out alone," Angel broke in.  "If you didn't need backup before you certainly do now.  It's just not practical to expect to be able to patrol for vampires and hunt down Bringers and avoid police patrols and, lest we forget, avoid a psycho killer."

"Actually I thought I explained the last part – I want to leave her at home."

Buffy knew it was a cheap shot, but she really couldn't work up much guilt over it.  And if it kept Angel angry and away from her, well, that's what she wanted, right?

A moment later she was forced to quash down the little voice in her head that reminded her that getting what she wanted usually resulted in large-scale fatalities.

* * * * *

She threw herself on the wrought iron bench, heaving a deep sigh as the night chill seeped from the metal into her bones.  Alone at last, and this time in body as much as spirit.  Surrounded by people almost every minute of the day, more than ever before in her life, Buffy was nevertheless almost always alone in her heart.  And like tonight, it was always by choice.  She couldn't afford to let anyone in.

"Buffy."

She stiffened at the sound of his soft voice coming from behind her.  He was someone she'd never been very good at keeping at arm's length, because he knew her too well to believe she wanted things that way.

"Okay," she snapped as she turned around on the bench, "now we're verging on the stalking thing again.  I told you once it was a turn-off."

Angel forced himself to remain calm and cool, regardless of the hostility in her voice.  They could talk here, really talk, alone and uninterrupted.  He wasn't about to blow that chance by losing control of his temper.

Or his pride.

"How was I supposed to know that was still on the 'eww' list?  You've obviously changed the rating system or Spike never would have made the cut."

Nothing made her madder than a self-assured vampire, but suddenly her anger seemed too much of an effort to sustain.  She couldn't give in, but maybe she could relax enough to make him see she wasn't in the mood to play the game tonight.

"You know," she said in tones of weary resignation, "I wasn't actually looking for company tonight."

"That's unfortunate," he countered, "because I am."  

She sneaked a sidelong glance at him as he gracefully folded his long form into the contours of the unyielding bench.  In some ways he was much the same man that she had fallen in love with so many years ago, but in other, almost indescribable ways he had changed.  He seemed more confident around people; more comfortable with himself as part of the whole, and this after all the confusion he must be feeling after Angelus' recent return.  

He just seemed more... human, somehow, and the fact that she found that attractive made her feel much better about her recent dance on the dark side of mating rituals.

Which in turn only made her feel that much more frightened about the future.

"So," he said after an uncomfortably long pause, "this is what you do on patrol these days."  He glanced around the dark and silent cemetery.  "It's, uh, much easier than I remember.  Especially on the wardrobe."

She made a face.  "I haven't started patrolling yet.  I was just... enjoying the quiet."

"In a Sunnydale cemetery?"  He raised one dark eyebrow in surprise.  "Things really have changed."

She saw her opportunity and ran with it, suppressing her instant flare of sharp regret.  When he left, he was going to tear a hole in her heart all over again and she knew it.  She also knew she didn't have a choice.

"Yeah, they have.  Which is why you don't belong here."

"Cemetery here or Sunnydale here?" he asked evenly, making no move to leave either.

"Yes.  Both."

"I think you need some new material."

"And I think you could do more good in LA," she said defensively.  "You have your own battles to fight there, and I have mine here and..."

"And sometimes the twain shall meet," he interrupted.  So much for the small talk; time to get down to business.  "Apocalypses don't just affect you, or just Sunnydale, Buffy."

Every instinct told her to keep her mouth shut.  The more she talked to him, the greater the chance that she'd let something slip.  Worse yet, each word would let him deeper into her mind, and her heart.

But some statements just couldn't go unchallenged.

"Hey," she broke in, "before you go all 'It-Takes-a-Village-to-Avert-an-Apocalypse,' do you mind telling me why I was supposed to 911 you, yet you let Angelus loose rather than ask your ex to lend some muscle?"

"The Beast took us by surprise," he admitted.  "Lorne had had some visions... things he pulled out of Cordy's memories from being a higher being..."

Buffy choked out, "A higher what?"

Angel sighed, but decided it would be better to rise above her laughter.  At least she was talking to him now, responding, interacting.  It was a sign of hope, albeit shaded with their traditional pain and conflicting desires.  

"She was called as a higher being for a few months, and then she came back to us."

"Just like that?"

"We're actually not sure how she came back," he said slowly.  "She didn't even know who she was at first, and then when Lorne gave her back her memory, she still didn't know why she was allowed to come back."

Buffy thought back on her encounters with Cordelia the past few days.  She remembered all the times Cordy seemed to be deliberately saying the wrong thing just to stir up trouble... something even the old Queen C seldom bothered with because it detracted attention from her own glorious self.  And then there were the strange silences and those little smiles when she thought no one was looking.  And of course there was the whole thing where she got involved with Angel's son after Fred said she used to be his chief diaper-changer... now that was a weird even a slayer found hard to ignore.  But knowing what she now did, Buffy tried to see Cordy's actions through the eyes of someone also yanked unceremoniously from one plane to another and ordered to adapt.  The resulting picture actually made her a little ill with its familiarity.

"Well that explains a little of the weirdness that is the new Cordy," she mused grimly.  It really grated on her nerves to have something in common with her old enemy.  "Not all, but a little."

"She's fine now."  Angel scoffed at the idea there was anything unusual about Cordelia, other than her possible demon spawn-to-be.  "But she was having visions when she first got her memory back... really ugly visions... and she couldn't piece them together.  Lorne tried, but then Wolfram & Hart stole the visions from him and..."

She waved her hand in a circle, indicating he should speed up.  Whatever empathy she had in her to offer these days she was no longer going to waste on Cordelia.  "Fascinating though this is, can we skip ahead to the part where you decided to throw your soul off a cliff rather than take five minutes to call me?"

"There weren't five minutes to spare.  By the time we knew where the danger was coming from, and how big it really was, the Beast had blotted out the sun and the vampires were roaming free.  We needed to do something immediately."  He cleared his throat, a little embarrassed to admit the whole truth.  "Besides, I kind of figured you'd see the reports on the news if it we didn't stop it right away."

She was overtaken by an immediate need to study the grass in minute detail.  "I did; I was just... busy."  Buffy looked up quickly when she realized her reply might have sounded a little too flip.  "I mean with the First and all.  A serious, work-related, world-in-peril sort of busy."

"And that brings us back to my point," he said gently.  "You've known for months that the First was roaming around, and you know I've already had experience with it.  What I don't know is why you didn't call sooner, at least to warn us."

"I didn't call at all," she snapped.  "That was Willow's decision."

"You've made that painfully clear."

His words were quiet and controlled, but she still knew him well enough to hear the ragged edges under that smooth façade.

"I'm not deliberately trying to hurt you," she said, careful to make her voice as calm and distant as she could manage.  "We have different lives... by your choice, in case you don't remember.  And I think Willow was wrong to pull you out of yours for this.  Like I keep telling you, I can handle it."  She stood up.  "Alone."

Angel stood up as well, his tall frame automatically bending and leaning towards her, to envelop her in the warm shelter of his presence.

"Why should you have to handle it alone?" he asked quietly.  "I'm here; I want to help.  Let me... please."

She fought against the old pull of her body to his, forcing herself to take a few steps to the side to get around him.  "I never asked for your help and I don't want it now.  Go back to LA."

"Buffy, wait."  

Angel reached out and caught her elbow as she slid past him, his only intent to slow her escape so they could talk.  For one blind instant, however, Buffy was only aware of restraint, not the degree of it.  She froze; her mind momentarily wiped blank by the kind of unreasoning terror she was supposed to protect others from.

"Buffy, what is it?"  Angel's voice came from far away, the sudden concern in his tone taking eons to travel the distance between them.  She made one inarticulate sound before she regained control of her voice, and then a combination of anger and humiliation sharpened her tone beyond her own recognition.

"Get your hand off me."

Angel immediately released her arm, raising both hands in the air, palms facing her.  "I'm sorry," he said quickly.  "I didn't mean to..." he mentally flailed around for the word to describe the fury in her voice combined with the frightening rigidity of her body.  "To upset you," he finally settled on.

He knew it; he'd known it from the minute Xander slipped the night before.  He hadn't wanted to believe it, neither that she who was so strong could be so compromised nor that she would lie to protect the one who had made her so.  But it was true; he could tell it from every achingly stiff line of her body.

"I asked you to leave.  I even said it nicely."  She bit off each word as though the next one would refuse creation if it had to exist as part of a whole.  "Then you grab me and try to force me to... like I was..."  she stopped, suddenly choking on the cool clean air.

"I'm sorry," he repeated helplessly to her rigid back.  "I just wanted another chance to talk with you.  I wanted a first one, really; you've been avoiding me since I got here."

"There's nothing to talk..."

"There is," he interrupted.  "You're shutting me out and you won't explain why, except for some garbage about ultimate evil trying to take over the world not being my business."  He stepped around in front of her, careful not to even brush against her as he moved.  "Maybe I can see why you didn't ask me to come, but now that I'm here it doesn't make any sense that you're trying to make me leave.  And I'm not going to until you can show me why this is a fight you have to face on your own."

She had averted her head when he moved around in front of her, but now she turned again to look at him.  She knew that set in his jaw, and the determination in those dark eyes.  Angel was every bit as stubborn as she, more so if he thought he was acting in her best interest.  Having him here was making things even worse than she'd imagined, but she finally had to face the painful truth that in order to get him out of her life she would first have to let him in a little.

"Were you followed?" she asked, surrendering to the inevitable.

Angel's brow wrinkled in confusion.  "Should I have been?"

"Just answer the question: were you followed?"

"No."

"Are you sure?" she pressed.  After all the sacrifices she'd made to pull this plan off, she wasn't going to let it blow up in her face over a bad guess.

"I think I would have noticed," he said confidently.

"That means you're not sure.  Did you tell anyone you were coming after me?  Did anyone see you leave the house?"

Angel was started to get very worried.  She sounded so intense, almost to the point of paranoia.  "I said I was going to get some blood.  I didn't want a lot of advice on whether or not I should chase after you again."

"Agai..." she started to repeat incredulously.  "Never mind," she stopped herself, shaking her head.  "That's something at least.  Meet me on the hill in," she checked her watch, "twenty minutes.  And this time, make sure you're not being followed."

Without another word, she was gone, moving swiftly across the damp grass as Angel stared after her in growing fear.

* * * * *

To Be Continued 


	7. Chapter 7

Dead End

**Part 7**

By Gem 

Angel could see Buffy already standing at the top of the hill as soon as he stepped out of the garden, the moonlight outlining her slight form against a wavering curtain of stars. 

He hadn't asked which hill she meant, and she hadn't volunteered; she knew he didn't need her to spell it out.  There was only one for them, the hill beyond the garden of his mansion on Crawford Street.  The hill where they used to linger before patrol, pretending they had all the time in the world to count the stars.  The same hill where he had gone to end his life one bleak Christmas morning, and she had followed to keep him from doing just that.  And the same hill where he'd witnessed the first miracle that ever told him he had a purpose on this earth beyond destruction and regret.

No, that wasn't true.  Buffy had been his first miracle.

She'd heard him step beyond the garden wall and turned slightly to watch him walk up and over the rise.  There was no welcoming smile on her face, no sign of any bittersweet nostalgia at the site of their meeting; there was only weary resignation.

"You weren't followed," she said as soon as he was close enough to hear her low voice.  

It wasn't a question.

"No," he agreed with a quick shake of his dark head.  "I did the over-shooting and doubling back and even went down a few alleys and over some fences, just to make sure.  Mind telling me why I acted like I was trying to smuggle illegal passports into Yugoslavia?"

She wrinkled her nose.  "Because you have really bad taste in spy movies?" 

"Buffy."

"You're the detective," she challenged him.  "You figure it out."

Angel had a very good idea of why, but he wasn't going to push this time.  He would work his way through slowly, giving her every opportunity to tell him instead of telling her and hearing her deny it again in self-defense.

"Well I can guess you didn't want anyone to know we're meeting.  But since I haven't exactly made a secret of the fact that you're why I came to Sunnydale in the first place..." he turned up his palms and shrugged as his voice trailed away.

She turned away, looking down the hill at the lights of the town below.  All those people safe in their homes, because she and Angel never could be.

"It wasn't 'anyone' I didn't want to know.  It was someone."

"And that someone is?" 

Buffy glanced back at him, unsure of why he was making her spell it all out.  Had he really bought her denial the night before?  At the time it certainly hadn't seemed like it.  

"Can't you guess?"

"If this was anything like a normal situation, I'd say it was your boyfriend.  But since we don't do normal very well..."

"He's not my boyfriend," she said sharply, her eyes flashing with an anger Angel could see even in the dim moonlight.  "If you mean Spike, that is.  He's not...but he is."

Angel could feel something deep within him loosen, and then tighten again, as Buffy first denied her relationship with Spike and then reaffirmed it.

"Fine," he said, with barely disguised frustration, "he's not your boyfriend but he is..."

"The reason I wanted to meet you alone," she finished for him, her voice taut with urgency.  "He can't know about this.  Ever."

They were getting closer, but Angel still needed to hear the words.  More than that, he was sure Buffy needed to say them.  From what he had seen of her the past few days, it didn't look like keeping them in wasn't doing her any favors.

If only it didn't hurt so much to watch her struggle.

"Oh what," he asked in what he hoped sounded like gentle sarcasm, "like I'm going to go brag to him about secretly meeting his not-a-girlfriend?  Gee, there's a coup."

Buffy looked up at him as some of her hard-won control slipped away in the face of his pain.  She had never meant to hurt him; he wasn't even supposed to be here just so that she couldn't hurt him.  Yet here he was and here she was and here was the mess that she'd made laying between them.

"You don't understand," she said impatiently.

"No, I don't, because you won't explain."

"I'm trying to."  

Angel started to walk away, and for a moment she thought she'd lost him forever.  She tried to be glad, for his sake, but she couldn't seem to summon that emotion until she realized he was merely moving back to perch on the low stone wall that enclosed the garden.

"I'm listening," he said quietly.

"He can't know because it would be dangerous," she said with difficulty.  "For you, for me... for all of us maybe."

Angel could feel his jaw begin to sag.  Even though he was the one who had first warned her, he still couldn't believe what he was hearing.  He felt like such an idiot for not recognizing sooner how raw and vulnerable the past few years had left her, and how very much that would appeal to Spike.  

"You're that afraid of him?" 

"I'm not afraid," she quickly corrected him.

Too quickly for Angel's peace of mind.  He tried to catch her eye, to gauge how much of her brave words were sincere, but she carefully avoided confronting him directly.

"You just said he was dangerous to you," he pointed out.

"I said he was dangerous for everyone."  She lifted her chin defiantly.  "I can take care of myself, but I don't want anyone else to get hurt."

Many things about Buffy had changed during his absence, but he recognized that defensive tone in her voice.  It reminded him of the frightened teenager he'd once glimpsed through a window, pretending everything was normal in front of her feuding parents, and then crying herself to sleep with the dust of vampires still rimmed beneath her fingernails.

"But if you think he's so dangerous, why in God's name are you with him?" he burst out.  "And don't deny that you're with him on some level.  I've seen too much the last few days to buy that."

She flinched at the bitterness in Angel's voice, her own guilt blinding her to the fact that he was directing it more at himself than anything she had done.  

"You've seen what I wanted you to see, just like everyone else."   Her voice was ragged with the strain of holding her feelings inside day in, day out, hour upon hour, minute after endless minute.  "Just like he does, or at least I hope he does.  If he doesn't..."

"If he doesn't, what?  What do you think he'll do?"  Angel grimaced; now that the first wall had been breached he had to push before he lost the advantage.  _So he felt like a heel for doing it; he'd earned it, hadn't he? _ "You told me he'd never hurt you.  He's the soul of... soulfulness... these days, right?  You're the one who's been trying to convince me it makes such a difference."

Buffy looked down at her feet, and then looked past him to the mansion down below; she looked anywhere she wouldn't have to look at Angel.  

Here was where it got hard.

"He has a soul," she admitted, "but... you were right.  I don't think he's any less dangerous than he ever was.  More, maybe, because he knows what he does is wrong now and he... just doesn't care."

_Just a little more_, he silently begged her.  _Baby please, trust me just a little bit more._

"What has he done?" was all he said.

She sighed and began pacing back and forth in front of him.  Her hands tightened reflexively, as they usually did when she was tense, but this time there was no convenient stake to wrap them around.  There was only Angel, and the gulf that yawned between them.

"I'm not stupid, Angel.  I didn't need you to tell me that soul doesn't equal saint, or that a vampire wears more than just his victim's face.  I went to school with Harmony, for God's sake.  And I knew Willow with and without leather.  And I... I knew you.  And Angelus." Her voice dropped to a near whisper.  "And even though it would have been a good way to get under my skin he never tried to convince me that I was like him, some sort of supernatural circus freak."  Buffy sighed as more unintended confessions escaped her.  "Unlike some vamps who shall remain nameless..."

"And spineless," Angel growled.  He had no doubts who she meant, and it only added fuel to the fire he intended to light under his worthless childe's extremely flammable hide.  "And soon to be hairless and toothless and less anything else I see hanging around..."

"Angel, stop."  His protective instincts brought the ghost of a smile to Buffy's face, but time was growing short.  "What I'm trying to say is that Angelus spent almost as much time as you do trying to remind me that I was a slayer and he was a vampire.  I admit he was doing that to hurt me, but," she shrugged, "it was still a part of you speaking through him.  On some level I always knew that."

"Then I don't get it.  If you knew Spike having a soul didn't mean he was any safer to have around, why risk it?"

_Why risk yourself?_

"I thought I still had the chip on my side, to buy me some time.  When he killed all those people, at first I thought it was the First.  The First Evil, I mean."  She paused to draw a deep breath and reassemble her jumbled memories into coherent sentences.  "I thought he killed them because the First made him do it, and that somehow overrode the chip."

This wasn't what Angel was expecting, not even close.

"Killed all those..." he started to echo, but Buffy wouldn't let him finish.

"I thought the voices in his head, the ghosts he was seeing... it all could have come from the First.  But whenever I looked in his eyes... it was just like before... before he got his soul."  She stopped pacing and turned to face Angel, her palms turned upwards in supplication.  "There's nothing there; nothing human, anyway.  No shame, no fear, no kindness... just two blue marbles focused on me.  Only me," she stressed. 

"He's obsessed."

Buffy nodded in reluctant affirmation as she carefully chose her next words.  She so didn't want to hurt him with reminders of a past he couldn't help or change, but it was the only way to make him understand.  

"It's like, well, kind of like seeing Angelus again only... blonder."

Angel was on his feet in an instant, a prickle of uneasiness traveling swiftly down his spine.  He was prepared to accept the idea of a human evil residing within Spike's breast, but Angelus was a comparison well beyond the boundaries of comfort.  

"Then why..."

"Am I pretending to... care... for him?" she finished awkwardly.  "Because the First wants him.  Or wanted him.  And I'm still not sure why."

"There are other ways to find out," he said sharply.  Knowing that she believed Spike to be so irredeemable and yet still gave herself to him was somehow even harder than believing she cared for him.

"No.  This is the way it has to be."  

Buffy shook her head decisively, the long strands of her blonde hair spilling smoothly over her shoulders.  Suddenly Angel was seized by memories so vivid they were almost painful, of those same silken locks brushing against his chilled skin.  He remembered the whisper-light caress, the scent, the golden warmth surrounding him... Angel swallowed hard and glanced away, hoping to regain his composure before Buffy noticed.

"I don't know if Spike is working with the First," Buffy continued, pretending not to see his discomfiture, "or if he just has his own agenda that fits in a little too well with the First's plans."

"He's not one of the world's great planners, Buffy."  Angel turned back to look at her, one part of his mind focusing fiercely on the problem at hand even as the rest of him struggled with the call of memories.  "As much as I hate to say anything nice about the guy, I really don't think he's plotting to end the world."

"You don't know him," she insisted, just seconds before she realized how inane the comment was.  But still she stood by it; she had to or all of her actions the past year had been for nothing.

"I've known Spike just a few decades more than you," Angel reminded her.  "Not quite in the same way, of course, but..."

"I..." she started to protest, but he quickly cut her off.

"I'm sorry."  He drew a sharp breath through his gritted teeth; he'd forgotten that around Buffy the man in him was much harder to control than the demon.  "That was... I shouldn't have said that.  I guess I'm just kind of..." Angel struggled with the word for a moment before he owned it, "jealous."

"Kind of?"  She raised an eyebrow.

"Okay," he said slowly, "how about greener than Lorne's big toe with?"

"Lorne has toes?"

"I...I don't know.  I mean I assumed..."  Angel sighed and rubbed two fingers hard against his brow.  "Is this really important to you?  I mean I can call and ask him if it will..."  

"No."

She wanted to keep the game going for just a few moments longer, long enough to lead them away from the dangerous waters of jealousy and betrayal.  But as always when it came to she and Angel, Time was calling all the shots.

"Angel, you have to know... you have to believe... there's nothing for you to be jealous of when it comes to Spike."  Her voice was low and tight with shame, each damning word she uttered forced out through sheer strength of will.  "Unless of course you always wanted us to mix sex and professional level kickboxing because we couldn't figure out who we hated more:  each other... or ourselves."

She could tell that whatever breath Angel had dragged into his lungs to speak had just rushed right back out again, leaving him unbearably silent and utterly still.  

"I have to find out the connection between Spike and the First; I don't have a choice.  And the only way I can do that is to keep Spike close, and make him think that I trust him so he'll trust me."

"And that's why you've let him stay with you?"  He'd rediscovered his voice, but Angel wasn't sure if he could really trust his hearing anymore.  "That's why you're keeping him under the same roof as your friends, potential slayers... and your sister?"  His voice rose sharply at the mention of Dawn's name, making the Slayer wince.  "Buffy, that's crazy."

"You know what they say: keep your friends close and your enemies..."

"... Padlocked into 12 feet of heavy-gauge steel cable."  

Buffy was beginning to regret letting him off the hook so easily for his earlier tactlessness.

"That's your kink, not mine," she snapped, scowling as she pushed her hair off of her face. 

Angel indulged in a moment of teeth-grinding and tongue-biting, then gamely pressed on.  

"Do I have to remind you who has the better track record at surviving my enemies... and yours?"

She bit her lip to keep from answering him.  Enemies he could survive; it was his loved ones that would one day be the death of Angel.  
  


"I can handle Spike," she insisted, pushing Angel's troubled past to the background for the moment.  "As long as he thinks I want him, he won't touch Dawn or any of the gang.  He knows if they get hurt..."

"... You'll be hurt.  I get it."  Angel was rapidly losing patience with this insanity.  "But what you're missing is the part where he cares.  If he's as bad as you think... and knowing what I know about his human life, I'm not arguing the point... it will eventually turn into a way of controlling you.  Eventually," he said with a grimace, "it will be more fun not to stop himself."

"There's no other way," she said, her jaw set stubbornly.  "I'll be careful; I promise I will.  But in the meantime, you need to leave."

* * * * *

Cordelia prowled the living room restlessly, periodically twitching the curtains aside to peer out into the darkness and then tossing them back into place with enough force to pull the drapery hooks from the rod.  After the fourth forceful yank, which left the curtains sagging in more places than they hung straight, Faith had finally had enough.

"Okay, Cordy, you want to tell me what exactly you're expecting to see out there?"  Faith tossed the knife she been polishing onto the coffee table and stood up.  "If you've had a vision or something I really think you should share with the class."

"That's a joke coming from you," Spike said grimly.  "Seeing as how you've made a career out of playing things close to the chest."  

"Hoping to be Thing One or Thing Two, Bleach Boy?"

He leered at her from force of habit, but his heart really wasn't in it.  For the third night in a row Buffy had refused his company on patrol.  In fact she seemed to be making an effort to avoid him entirely; he hadn't had a minute alone with her since their brief basement tryst the night her precious Angel blew into town.  Worse than that, Spike was pretty sure she had made time to see his waste-of-space sire alone while he was forced to baby-sit the bush-league slayers.

Someone was going to pay for this, Spike vowed, starting with the pretender to the throne.  He lowered his eyes and glowered up at her through his lashes, but Faith didn't even seem to see him anymore.  The little bint was, as usual, all wrapped up in herself.

"Angel asked me to help and that's what I'm going to do."  Faith's stiff posture spoke clearly of her awkwardness at being among them again, but she tried to keep her voice relaxed if nothing else.  "I don't owe the rest of you a damn thing, but I owe him."

"Excuse me?"  Xander looked at the slayer in disbelief.  He had very distinct memories of her hands on his throat, and they weren't there to adjust his tie.  "After all you did to us the last time you were in Sunnydale, you think the only one you owe is Angel?  What have you done to him lately?"

"It's not what I did to him."  She took her attention away from the antsy Cordelia long enough to glare at Xander.  "It's what he did for me... what none of the rest of you, even your almighty Buffy, would've done for me."  Thumbing her nose at the First Evil, at least in her mind, she spelled out her debt in terms so simple she was sure even Xander would be able to understand.  "He didn't give up on me."

Xander was not about to be cowed by Faith anymore, and he certainly had no desire to explore any truths her words might hold.  "Well face it, he's got longer than the rest of us to wait out your bad girl phase, what with being Mr. Immortality and all."  

"Does every bloody conversation have to come back to that ponce?" Spike growled.  "Remember the good old days when we used to just chat about ultimate evil and the end of the world?"

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Xander sighed, "but I'm with Spike.  Everything's been out of whack since Angel blew back into town."  His voice turned plaintive.  "And you know, I happen to like whack.  I miss it."

"More than I need to know about your sex life, Harris."  Faith joined Cordelia at the front window, catching the Seer on her latest check on the perimeter.  "You never did answer me, Cor.  What are you looking for out there?"

Cordelia didn't say anything for a moment; she didn't even seem to notice Faith was standing next to her.  Finally she turned to the slayer, her eyes wide and distant.  

"Shouldn't Angel be back by now?"  Her right hand... the one visible to her audience... descended to rub her distended stomach in a seemingly absent fashion.  "He only went out to get blood, but it seems like so long ago now."  Cordelia's blank gaze shifted from Faith to Spike, turning the game up just a notch.  "Don't you think he's been gone a long time?"

Spike sat up slowly, mentally measuring Angel's errand against the minutes already passed by on the mantel clock.  It had been at least a half-hour, hadn't it?  A half-hour to get blood in a town he knew like the back of his lily-white hand, and him not exactly Mr. Sociable inclined to stay for a pint before he headed for home.

And Buffy gone more than that half-hour now, patrolling all on her lonesome, at her insistence.  Said she needed some peace and quiet.

A piece of someone quiet was more like it, he thought with a barely suppressed growl.

"Yeah," he said at last, "someone should really go look for him."

* * * * *

Angel scratched his head and frowned.  "I need to what?"

"You have to leave," Buffy repeated, as though it were obvious.  "Now that you know the truth you have to leave Sunnydale, and I have to stay and that's just the way it is.  Sacred duty meets ancient prophecy and we both end up alone on a Saturday night.  Life, and afterlife, bites."  An unhappy smile flitted across her face and then was gone.  "No pun intended."

"Buffy, I'm not going anywhere."  He stared at her as though he'd never seen her before, as he began to wonder if he ever really had.  "Even if there wasn't this whole 'all hands on deck for the end of the world' thing going on, I'm not about to leave you to deal with Spike alone.  Not now."

"But the only reason I told was to get you to leave!"  

He wasn't so sure about that.  He had seen the tight rein she kept on her emotions, and he had also seen the cost of it in her eyes when she thought no one was looking.

"I'm not afraid of Spike," she reiterated, as though she stood accused of a crime.  "If you're staying here just to hold my hand when I face the big bad vampire... don't.  I don't need it."

Angel was worried despite her repeated reassurances, or more accurately, he was worried because of them.  Buffy kept saying 'I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid,' like a charm or a spell.  

Or like a little girl walking into a dark forest all by herself.  

Suddenly, and no matter what Buffy said to the contrary, Angel was sure the story Dawn had worked so hard not to tell him was true: Spike had tried to rape her sister.  

For a moment a haze of red washed over his eyes, his only foothold on sanity resting in Dawn's assertion that Spike had not succeeded.  Fiercely he clung to the idea that she had managed to fight him off, although he doubted the distinction was of much comfort to Buffy.  Both the woman and the slayer in her were fighters, and each side of her nature would have been equally rocked by such a violation of her sense of self.  Long after the visible bruises had faded, her perception of herself was still tainted by what she saw as her failure, and by her fear.

He wondered if Buffy knew it wasn't only Spike she was trying to defeat, but the insecurities his actions spawned.  And that, being Buffy, she was trying to conquer fears she couldn't admit by placing her head directly in the lion's mouth, waiting for him to choke.

Or snap.

"I just think we could kind of balance each other out."  Angel struggled for words that would not betray his revelations; even if he were right, she still wasn't ready to talk openly about it.  "We see different parts of him, and in different ways.  What one of us misses..."  

Buffy balled her right hand into a fist and punched downwards, wishing there was a convenient evil guy at the other end of her arm.  She really needed to hit something right about now. 

"Angel, it's too hard to do this with you around," she broke in.  "It's making him even more unstable; I mean he's about one red dress away from being Dru these days.  You're worried about him losing control?  Well you're the one who's going to make him lose it."

"No, he's going to lose it whether I'm here or not."  He took one long step towards her, but he still resisted the urge to touch her.  The control Buffy was keeping over herself looked like it might shatter at any moment.  "And if he's in league with the First, it's a toss-up whether he'll hold off on the meltdown until after the apocalypse has started or he'll be the warm-up act."

"I can take care of myself," she insisted.  "Defender of the universe, remember?  I get to take care of everyone because I can."

"But you don't have to do it alone.  You're choosing to and that's... nuts."

"Like you're the poster child for share and share alike?"

"I'm not talking about me," he replied crossly.  "And in case the six... no, seven people I brought with me from LA have escaped your attention, can I just say I've actually learned to play well... okay, fairly well... with others?  But you haven't told anyone about this thing with Spike, have you?"   Angel looked at her closely, seeing the answer in her eyes before she turned her head to avoid facing him.  "Not Willow or Xander... or even Giles?"

Abruptly her brittle façade began to melt.

"No," she whispered.  "I couldn't."

"But why not?  You used to tell them everything."  It was a gift he'd envied, the ability to share, to confide.  Whatever he knew about it now, and tried to practice with his own friends, he'd learned from Buffy.

"They'd want to help."

He frowned but forced himself to remain silent and wait, knowing there had to be more to the story.

"This isn't just Spike and his usual mixed nuts doubles partner," she explained with difficulty.  "He was bad enough with Dru, but now he... and then there's the First...  it's too much.  I can't risk them."  She lifted both hands and ran them through her windblown hair, not even noticing the tugs as her fingers struck tangles.  "If I told them there's no way I could keep them from helping.  They'd give it everything they've got and one of those things would be someone's life.  I know it."

"And they know the risks, Buffy," he said gently.  "They've always known, but some things, and some people, are worth the fight."

"But it would all be my fault because... because I didn't stake him before all this started."

Angel closed his eyes for an instant as a shield against the raw pain on his lover's face, but it didn't help.  No matter where he hid he could never escape the sins of his past.  Nor, it seemed, could Buffy escape feeling to blame for them.

"Then let me help," he begged, raising his hand to her cheek and gently turning her face towards his.  "Because if you want to go back to where this all started with Spike... it ends up on my doorstep."  

Instantly the old instincts kicked in, leaving Buffy scrambling for a way to steer Angel clear of the guilt that dogged him awake and asleep.

"Yeah, except by that argument we have to go back to Darla, and then the Master and... well, I haven't a clue who killed him but it was way long ago so I don't think we'd be able to extradite unless you stashed a DeLorean in the garage during the eighties."

"What about the slayers before you who didn't kill Spike?" he challenged.  "Like your boss's mother.  Do we blame her?  Or how about the slayers who didn't kill me before I killed Dru?  They could have cut the bloodline off at the pass by cutting me off at the head."

"Stop."  She slapped her hand over his lips with more force than she'd intended, too jolted by the image his words presented to be gentle or patient.  "I'm not playing the begats on both sides of the family tree; I get the point.  I don't agree," she warned, lest he think he'd won.  "This is my fight and I'm not getting the others involved."

It wasn't what Angel wanted; from what he could tell Buffy needed all the support she could get right now.  But if he wanted to show her that he'd changed, he was going to have to start somewhere, and respecting this choice seemed the best way to go.

"As long as you don't think that 'the others' includes me, I'll agree," he conceded.  "For now.  Later on, if the stakes go up..."     

She had started to draw a deep breath of relief when he began to speak, ending with a gusty sigh when it became clear she was no further ahead than when she began.  

"I need... I need to go."  

"No."  His protest was automatic, instinctive.

She hated that she could still think clearly and coldly about the situation, pushing her own feelings and Angel's to the back of her mind as she assessed the risks and benefits of every move they made.  She hated what necessity had made of her, but she couldn't let go now, when the end was so close at hand.

"I have to patrol," she forced herself to say, "and you have to get back to the house before anyone realizes we're together."

Angel shook his head.  Logic argued on her side, but he was in no mood to be logical. "Not yet." 

"It's way past yet."

He checked his watch, and then lied to himself about what he saw there.  "We have a little time still.  Not much, but..."

She smiled, or at least she tried to, but Angel saw only the sadness and loneliness shadowing her eyes.  

"No, we don't."

He raised one hand and gently traced the line of her jaw with his fingertip.  "Then we're taking it anyway.  Because I'm not going anywhere until the First Evil is the Last Evil, which means we're going to have to work out some plans."

She made herself reach up and remove his hand from her cheek, but as she pulled it down she still held it fast.  Buffy rarely allowed herself physical contact with anyone these days – letting the barriers down even a millimeter left the door open to surrender.  But she missed the feeling of someone casually touching her on the shoulder, or the simple pleasure of taking a friend's hand in hers.  And she couldn't even begin to describe how much she'd missed the feel of Angel's cool skin against her own, the reassuring solidity of his muscles moving smoothly in unison with hers.

"Plans for what?" she asked, more as an excuse to prolong this moment than from any desire to think about the future.

"How I can help you with Spike."

Buffy ground her teeth together as he unceremoniously yanked her from living in the moment.  Winning an argument with Angel used to be a possibility, but somewhere along the way he'd tumbled onto the advantage that immortality gave him and ever since then he'd just waited her out.  Still, she was the slayer and fighting was what she did best.

"I thought we established that: leave."

"No, we established that you think I should leave and I won't go."  He smiled at her naiveté.  "So what's our next step?"

* * * * *

As Buffy was pulling out all the stops to persuade the world's first vampire with a soul to abandon her to the vagaries of Fate and Evil, Faith was working equally hard to keep the runner-up plastered to her side.

"Spike, I really think you should stay here.  In fact," the slayer deftly slid past him to block his access to the front door, "I'm going to insist."  

Spike did actually stop, paying momentary homage to her guts if not her brains.  

"Insist, is it?  And you really think you can keep me here?  You?" 

Faith crossed her arms over her chest and smirked at him.  She knew of Spike's history with slayers, and it should have made her nervous.  Instead it amused her.  She had survived Angelus and she'd survived Kakistos... she'd be damned if Sid Vampish was going to send her running for cover.

"I can think of all sorts of ways to keep you here, Spike.  Some of 'em you might even enjoy, though me..." she shrugged philosophically.  "But hey, a girl's gotta do who a girl's gotta do." 

"And here I thought you were panting at Angel's heels," the vampire scoffed.  "Turns out you don't even care if he's run up against the First all by himself and..."

"You know," Cordelia broke in, "I'm getting really sick of this 'the First' stuff.  It's the First Evil, not the First First, you know."  She swept a scathing glance around the room, for once too annoyed to measure her words.  "There are other firsts in the world, and some of them might get pretty ticked at being pushed to the back burner so some show-off power can hog all the attention by being more evil than thou.  I mean..." her voice trailed off as she suddenly registered the puzzled expressions of her listeners' faces.  "I mean it's just... wrong.  Grammatically.  And, umm, sequentially.  And, well," she waved impatiently at Willow, "you should be the one protesting here.  You're Segue Girl.  Start segging."

"I'm good, actually," the witch said from the depths of her armchair.  "I have no problems giving the First Evil a nickname like 'The First,' as long as we all know who we're talking about."

"Maybe we should vote," Xander suggested.  "A secret ballot.  We'll see how many black marbles Cordy gets and..."

"I must have already lost all my marbles," Cordelia grumbled, "expecting any support out of you two.  Some things never change."

"We've changed, Cor," Xander protested.  "You used to be able to get to us."

"And now I can't even get rid of you," she sighed.

"Hey, who horned in on whose apocalypse?" her former boyfriend challenged.  

"And who's going to stop it?" Spike broke in loudly.  "Angel and his amazing hair gel?  Not bloody likely.  And not Buffy either, not without me to back her up."  He thought quickly, trying to frame an argument that appealed to the nobler instincts Angel and Buffy's groupies were always blathering about.  "But they're out there, and the... our... First is out there and we're standing around here listening to you three fight over who got the best seat in study hall."

"Now I know the world is truly coming to an end when the vampires start lecturing us on the right way to save it."  Wesley got up from his hard wooden chair by the fireplace and approached Faith.  "Perhaps we should allow Spike...with the proper accompaniment, of course... to search for Angel and Buffy.  There may be many evils abroad tonight."

"So, hey, why not add one more?" Xander said, throwing his hands in the air.

"I'm not fighting the idea of someone looking for them," Faith explained.  "I just think we need to keep a leash on Spanky here.  He's a little too eager to bite."

"I'll go with him," Wesley offered.  "And this time I won't let him out of my sight."

It would afford him the best opportunity to keep Spike away from Connor, Wesley decided, and the vampire might actually be right about Angel and Buffy being in danger.  And no one was saying he actually had to talk to Spike, just keep him from doing any more damage than his long life had already afforded.

"I'm not looking to lead a parade," Spike grumbled.  

If he could have managed to get Faith alone without being obvious it would be a different story, but that was too much to ask for right now.  Later, things would be different.  Later things would come around his way for a change.

"Everybody loves a parade," Lorne said, his voice tuned more to coaxing a toddler to eat Brussel sprouts than inducing a vampire to accept containment.  

"Oh, I do," Fred chimed in.  She could see where Lorne was going with his comment, and she wanted to help.  She also, quite honestly, loved parades.  "All those floats... and the big balloon animals… and the clowns.  I love clowns."

Xander shivered.  

"Why don't I go along with you?" Gunn suggested to Wesley.  "In case there's really trouble you could probably use an extra hand... and fist."

"And we can't do better than a human one, now can we, Shaft?" Spike sneered.  

Gunn ignored the vampire's sarcasm, but when criticism came from another corner it was not so easy to overlook.

"Why do you always do this, Charles?"  Fred demanded, awkwardly scrambling to her feet from her spot on the floor.  Any thoughts she had a moment earlier about 'all for one and one for all' had been washed away by fear.  "Why does it always have to be you," she gestured wildly, almost hitting him in the face, "riding in to rescue someone who might not want you to see that they need rescuing?"

He stared at her in shock, hearing the undercurrents as no one else but Wesley could.  All this time he'd thought her problem was with Faith, that because she was insecure in their relationship she felt unusually threatened by a strange young woman in their midst.  But it was still about her professor, and the death that lay between them.

"Baby, don't..." he began, but Fred wasn't finished yet.

"Maybe some people don't want you to show them how weak they really are... and mean... and just... just hateful!"  Tears started to spill out of the corners of her eyes drenching her lips like a salty rain, but she'd sooner drown than stop now.  "Maybe you playing the big hero makes them feel even worse because they were trying to keep you clean!"

Gunn was reaching out to her, his arms automatically proffered as a safe haven from the storm, but Fred couldn't hide behind him now.  Her sins were now offered up for speculation, and her pain too nakedly evident to face any of the assembled.  She pushed away Gunn's arms and stumbled past him, moving blindly but determinedly through the crowded living room towards the safety of the quiet second floor.

Lorne laid a gentle hand on Gunn's shoulder.  "Her soul's been singing the blues to me when she doesn't even say a word."

"That's the problem."  Gunn looked away, staring at the wall as he invented a hundred new words for 'jackass' and tried them all on for size.  "She hasn't been saying and I haven't been saying and all that not talking is getting too damned loud."

"Go upstairs, Gunn," Wesley said softly.  "We can handle this."

Once the Watcher would have been savagely glad he'd understood something in Fred that Gunn could not, but now all Wesley felt was pity.  Each of them saw the innocence in the other and loved it, but the inability to see it in their own selves was the wedge that threatened to keep them apart forever.  In a way it was the same dilemma Buffy and Angel faced, but both slayer and vampire had scars that left them made of much tougher stuff than fragile Fred and her chosen Sir Galahad.

"Are you sure, English?"  Gunn glanced uncertainly towards the stairs, weighing another fight with Fred against battling the ultimate force of evil in the universe.  He had a sinking feeling evil would be a lot easier to win over.  "We came here to do a job and..."

"I can go," Connor offered.

Connor had no burning desire to ride off to Angel's rescue, or at least he was pretty sure he didn't.  Though he had to admit, at least to himself, that it would be kind of satisfying to see the look of surprise on his father's face if he did.  Surprise and possibly gratitude, or maybe even a little respect.

Not that it mattered, Connor hastened to assure himself.  Not that he cared.

"I'm stronger than Gunn," he added.  "And a better fighter, if there's trouble."

Gunn was already headed for the staircase, but he turned at Connor's words.  "Hey, Sprout, what makes you think..." 

Connor didn't even pretend to listen to Gunn's useless protest.  "I won't even kill him," he jerked his head at Spike, "if you really don't want me to."

"No."  Wesley didn't mean the word to come out as sharply as it did; he saw the rejection hit Connor like a physical blow.  He tried to soften his explanation, in hopes of making amends.  "No, it's best you stay here.  This is where you're needed."

Cordelia reached out and caught Connor's hand with her own, dragging him to her side.  She had no more illusions about Spike than Wesley did; actually she had less.  Soul or no soul, Spike was first and foremost a vampire.  Connor was human, and therefore prey.  To Cordelia, however, the boy was so much more, and she had no intention of letting any two-bit demon with an overbite and an attitude mess with what was hers.

"Stay here, Connor," she echoed.  "I need you."

"And I need a bush to heave into."  Spike glowered at Faith, who remained serenely in his way.  "Now are you going to move or am I going to play pick-up-sticks with slayer bones first?"

The slayer glanced at Wesley; he gave her the smallest of encouraging nods as an answer.  She took one large step to the side and gestured to the front door.

"Fetch, boy." 

Spike grunted as he stalked past her into the night, but his attempt at hauteur only made Faith laugh.

"Jeeze, you'd think I called him Lassie."

"Nah," Xander scoffed, "Lassie was a natural blonde."

"And brunette," Dawn added, lifting one of her own smooth brown locks for inspection.  "But I don't know about the white – does that equal albino or..."

"Guys," Willow broke in, "normally I'm all over the witty banter; in fact just call me Banter Girl."

"Banter..." 

"But this is Spike we're talking about," she continued loudly over Xander's voice. "Looking for Angel.  Who's probably with..."

"Buffy," Xander groaned.  

He still remembered the hurt and roiling anger he felt when he caught Buffy having a secret rendezvous with the supposedly dead Angel; the things he and the others had said and done in the aftermath could have driven Buffy away forever.  And he wasn't even an uber-jealous super-powered sociopath.  Who knew how many small cities Spike would level before he felt vindicated?

"I'll go after him," Faith volunteered.  "Just in case he needs a muzzle."

And if he did, she reasoned, so much the better.  She was aching for someone or something to hit, since she couldn't manage to put a gag on the mayor.  Ever since Cordelia raised the alarm about Angel, he had been whispering in her ear, pretending to commiserate that Faith was now the Chosen One to defend Buffy's right to date not one but two vampires.  If she was given the chance to pummel, or maybe even stake Spike, she'd feel like she was once again doing something for Angel instead of Buffy, and that was okay.  That was right.

"Be careful," Wesley warned her.  

Faith flashed him a quick grin before she slipped out the door.  "That'll be the day, coach."

The living room felt strangely large in Spike's absence.  The vampire always seemed to take over any room he was in within moments of his entry, and once he departed it usually took a few minutes before objects and people resumed their appropriate size.  It was a feeling Xander should have been familiar with by now, but he continued to fight it with the best weapon at his disposal.

"Well, gee, that was fun," he drawled.  "What's the encore?  Holy water squirt guns at high noon?"

"I'm going... I'll be upstairs," Gunn mumbled, marching up the stairs like a man facing his doom.

No one heard the kitchen door open, or footsteps making their way across the tile towards the living room.  Yet suddenly she was there, and she didn't look pleased.

"Xander Harris, why haven't you called me?"

"Anya," he gulped.

* * * * *

Buffy and Angel were still arguing over his participation in her plan when they entered the mansion.

"You'll never pull it off.  You're not that great of an actor."  Abruptly she stopped walking and glanced around the Great hall.  Her face was clouded with confusion as she once again tried to rub away the chill on her bare arms, a chill not helped by the cool stone walls surrounding them.  "How did we get here?  I distinctly remember telling you I had to go."

Angel shrugged off his coat and draped it over her shoulders.  As he crossed the room to light the fire he'd laid in the grate that afternoon, he answered her over his shoulder.

"You did... and I disagreed.  Just like I disagree that I can't pull this off.  I mean I don't like to brag..."

She snorted, though a small smile teased at the edges of her mouth.

"...but do you remember who it was who tricked Faith into spilling the mayor's plans?"  He flicked a lit match into the fire.  "Mr. Not Such a Great Actor, that's who."

"You told her what she wanted to hear."  Not what Buffy had wanted to hear; that went without saying.  But it had certainly done the trick for Faith.

"And this will be what Spike wants to hear."  Angel could almost hear Buffy's thoughts, and he echoed them as far as his errant childe went.

She followed him over to the fireplace, taking her old seat on the couch nearest the hearth without thinking.  

"No way.  He won't fall for it."  She shook her head firmly as she curled her legs up onto the couch and covered them with the length of Angel's coat.  "He's known you too long.  A leopard doesn't change his stripes."

Angel's argument was monetarily derailed, as she had intended.  He turned his back on the blossoming fire and stared at her.

"Spots.  Tigers are striped."

Buffy wrinkled her nose at the thought.  "You look awful in polka-dots.  Actually stripes don't do much for you either."  She tipped her head to the side and smiled.  "But for some weird reason I'm getting a flash of you in plaid and thinking yum."

"Plaid?" he asked faintly.  Every Irish bone in his body cringed at the thought.

"Nothing flashy," she assured him.  "Just some nice dark blue and green or... see that's what I mean!"  Buffy pounded her fist on the arm of the sofa.  Turnabout was so not fair play.  "You always do that to me.  I get all serious and slay-worthy and then I start thinking about you and clothes... or not clothes... and then that's all I can think about."

This wasn't the right time; Angel knew that.  In fact he knew the right time probably wasn't even on their month-at-a-glance.  But suddenly he was desperate to bring a smile to Buffy's face, to know he could give back to her just a little of the happiness she gave him simply by existing.

"Is it really so bad, thinking like that?"  Angel smiled; flashing that old crooked grin, the one he knew melted every bone in her body, as he closed the distance between them.  "Not all the time, of course.  We have a world to save..."

"I have a world to save," Buffy corrected him tartly, emphasizing the pronoun.  Somebody obviously needed to be reminded who carried the stake in this family.

_Family_? her panicked mind echoed a moment later.  _Did I just say..._

"You have a world to save," he conceded, acknowledging the solitary nature of her calling.  "I have souls to save, or at least souls who need a chance to save themselves."  He stretched out one hand and captured hers, easily pulling her to her feet to stand in front of him.  "But just for a little while now and then... or maybe more than a little... is it really so bad to focus on you and me?"

Buffy hastily gathered the thoughts he was setting loose with such devastating ease.  Angel knew the reality of their situation as well as she, better in fact, but obviously the idea of them working together again had gotten to him.  Someone had to be responsible, and dammit, it looked like Angel was leaving it up to her.

"You know it is.  You know we can't..."

"Not now," he quickly agreed.  "This place is like a bus station the day before Thanksgiving.  But later, when things are quieter..."

She wanted to run and hide, mostly because the last thing she felt like doing when he used that husky tone of voice was escaping him.  She wanted to escape in him, with him, and never return to the world that expected so much of both of them.

She wanted to be Buffy, not the Slayer, but that option had disappeared long ago, if it had ever really existed.  So instead she stood her ground, just inches from everything she wanted, and threw it back in his face with all the strength she could summon.

"So Angelus can get a good nap in first?  He must be exhausted after his latest attempt to send the world to hell, or wherever he was aiming for this time."  

Angel had been waiting for this moment since the instant Willow had told him and even if it wasn't remotely how he had pictured it, he didn't care.  It was just such a relief to finally share it with Buffy.  It wouldn't seem real until he did that; nothing ever did.  

"He's not coming back, Buffy."  

Against her will, her free hand reached up to stroke his cheek.  Once arrived, she found she could not force its withdrawal.

"You can't make that kind of promise."

"Willow's spell... I'll let her explain the details, but my soul is safe, I promise."  Angel turned his cheek into her palm, nuzzling the soft fragrant skin pressed so warmly against his own.  "The demon is still inside me; I can't change that.   But he won't ever take over again.  He can't."

"Willow's spell?" she repeated, stalling for time.  "The one she did in LA... the one to restore your soul? That..."

"That spell," he agreed. 

A small part of him was hurt that she didn't seem more excited; if anything she seemed politely confused.  But even when he had lived in Sunnydale, and she was so much more innocent and hopeful, she found it hard to trust sudden good fortune.  He hadn't been lying when he told Wesley she didn't like surprises, not even good ones.  Good turned bad so quickly for her, and the bad usually required killing.

"She worked with Lorne and some friends of his to make it permanent.  This last time with Angelus came too close... we can't let him loose again.  It's gone beyond too dangerous."

Buffy choked as a nervous laugh collided with a sob in her throat.  The hand that had been gently brushing Angel's cheek slipped down his chest, her fingers flexing as she clutched at the silk of his shirt to stop her freefall.

"Too dangerous?" she gasped.  "Ya think?"

"I think... no, I know he can't come back.  That's what matters."  He looked deep into her hazel eyes, suddenly unsure of what he might find in their depths.  "Isn't it?"

* * * * *

"Anya, you... you're here.  I, umm, was going to call you but there was this... and then we..."

Anya held up her hand to ward off Xander's excuses.  "I don't want to hear it.  I called on you for help and you let me down.  Again.  So you could be with your friends."  She cast a scornful glance around the room, but seemed to be ignoring the evidence of her eyes as she added, "So you could be with your precious Buffy; that was the real reason, wasn't it, Alexander Harris?"

"I hate it when she uses my full name," he grumbled.

Dawn nodded sympathetically, unwinding her tangle of arms and legs as she scrambled over to sit at his feet in a show of support.  "It's never a good thing.  When Buffy says 'Dawn Summers' in that voice... you know that voice... I know I'm in trouble."

"Trouble is when you hear your middle name too," Willow said glumly, several SITs in the room nodding in vigorous agreement.

"Using my middle name would only get Anya in trouble," Xander warned.  

He took a few steps closer to her, intent on getting her into another room where they could fight in peace.  His plans were thwarted, however, by the sudden presence of Connor between he and his on-again off-again girlfriend.

"I'm sorry," the boy said softly.  "She doesn't smell."

"I'm not," Xander responded bluntly, not understanding the kid's problem.  "I actually find that attractive in a woman.  Provided of course she's not really picky about how I might..."

Connor's words hadn't made the intended impression on Xander, but even in the short time he had been reunited with his friends, Wesley had come to know a few things about Angel's son.  Connor was trying to be gentle, a side he seldom let anyone see after the long years of living with Holtz.  If he was being that careful with the feelings of a relative stranger, it could only mean bad tidings.

"Xander," Wesley interrupted, "I don't think you understand what Connor is trying to say."  He fumbled for the right words, struggling at the same time to push away the memory of Lilah dropping limply from Angelus' arms.  "If you remember, Angel had a concern about scent, and I think Connor is trying to... that is to say Anya isn't..."

"No," Willow said sharply.  She raised one hand and slashed it in the air to silence the Watcher, and then slowly, painfully walked over to her oldest friend in the world.  "I will do this," she said, her voice steady through sheer force of will.

"Do what?"  Xander looked from Willow to Wesley, and then to Connor.  "You guys are wigging me out; what's with the silent auction here?"

There was a nagging voice at the back of his head trying to remind him why they all suddenly looked so sad, but he wouldn't listen.  He refused to listen, because there was nothing to listen to.  There couldn't be.

"They're trying to confuse you.  They think they can make you choose them over me."  Anya was openly sneering at him now, something she only did when he'd hurt her more than she could find words to describe.  "And why not?  You always have before."

"Xander honey," Willow said softly.  "What Connor... what we... are trying to say is that she isn't... that that thing," she spat out the word, "isn't Anya."

"No."

Xander didn't know exactly who barked out the word 'no;' it sounded vaguely like his father's voice just before he switched from taking a belt to swinging one.  But his father wasn't here and Xander couldn't... wouldn't... conceive of a situation where his own voice could become so harsh and bitter.

"It's the First Evil, Xander."

He tried to laugh it off because that was the only way he knew how to hold back reality.  Seven long years of demon hunting had allowed him to hone his skill to an art form.

"Hey, I know you and Anya haven't ever gotten along really well, but there's no need to call her evil, Will.  I mean sure, she's had her demonish moments... maybe you could even call them demony.  But that's all better now.  You're cured, right, honey?"

"She never liked me," Faux Anya sniffed.  "She was always jealous, even if you wouldn't admit it."

"You have to steel yourself, Xander.  This isn't really Anya."  Wesley's gentle voice ill matched the hard look he leveled at the First.  "I know it appears to be, but it's only an illusion."

It had taken Cordelia a few minutes to recover her composure after 'Anya' walked into the room, but luckily Xander's denial-fest had taken the heat off her at the crucial time.  Now she could settle down to some serious work, provided the participants would cooperate.

"If you don't believe them, check it out for yourself," she suggested.  "Touch her."  

Connor shot his lover a puzzled look.  He knew he was right about this creature pretending to be Xander's girlfriend, and somehow he'd assumed that at least Cordelia would support him.  She, at the very least, must know without question that he was telling the truth.  And if she did believe him, wasn't it cruel to drag things out like this?

"She has no smell," Connor repeated patiently.

"Stop saying that!"  

"I can settle this," Anya volunteered.  

In the blink of an eye Anya's suede top morphed into a wrinkled suit jacket and polyester white dress shirt.  Her long, satin skirt dimmed from dark red to a brownish grey tweed wannabe, and her loose blonde curls grayed and shrank both in length and number.  Thin lips pursed together as his face tightened into an impatient scowl.

"It's all the drugs you kids do these days," Principal Snyder said with a dismissive sniff.  "You don't know when to believe your own eyes anymore.  Bunch of juvenile delinquents.  The mayor should've eaten you when he had the chance."

* * * * *

Buffy suddenly felt a wave of anger surging up through her, rising so quickly it almost made her dizzy.  She just wasn't sure if it was the injustice that made her lightheaded, or the newfound freedom to express it.

"So Angelus is the only thing you think I should worry about?" she asked in a high, thin voice.

"No, I didn't mean it that way, exactly."  Angel frowned, wondering where his good news had gone so bad.  He wasn't allowed much time for a retrospective, however; his beloved had a few questions of her own.

"When we broke up..." she clutched his shirt tightly, twisting it to make sure he didn't escape, "make that when you dumped me, you kept saying sex wasn't the whole deal.  Now you're saying that it was?"

"No, of course not."

"So what else has changed?"  

Angel's coat slipped from her shoulders and pooled at her feet; if she took a step backward she would get tangled up in it.  But Buffy had no intention of backing off now.  

"If sex, which is to say 'hello Angelus, what towns have you drained today?' isn't the issue... if it was never the issue... then what is the issue that suddenly isn't?"  

She was pushing him and she knew it.  More importantly, she knew she shouldn't.  A half-hour ago she had been doing everything she could to persuade him to leave, and now she was trying to make him admit why he couldn't.  It was wrong and it was dangerous, but her heart had never been very easy to reason with when it came to Angel.

"Me.  I've changed."  He took a deep breath and then let it out slowly.  "And so have you."

She barely repressed a shudder at the memory of some of the changes in her world since the days when Angel shared it with her.  The lessons she'd learned from those changes seemed like pretty poor compensation for the parts of her soul she'd lost along the way.  

"Not good enough.  Change doesn't always mean things get better."

A bittersweet smile chased across Angel's pale face.  He had ghosts of his own to contend with.

"Actually cloth diapers can give you a whole new perspective on that one."

"Angel, I'm not..."

"...kidding.  I know.  Neither am I."  Reluctantly he dragged his mind from the too-brief weeks of Connor's infancy; he couldn't afford to linger overlong in the past if he wanted to have any kind of a future.  "Changes don't have to be good to do some good, Buffy.  Sometimes what we need is the hardest thing to live through."  He gently covered her hand on his chest with his own.  "I've been trying to talk to you about this since I got here."

Buffy bit her lip as she struggled with the compulsive need to check her watch.  It wasn't as though the watch was going to tell her anything good; she already knew they had to be out of time.  People... Spike... would be getting suspicious, possibly to the point of tracking them down.    She had to go.

"So talk," she said instead.

* * * * *

Gunn made his way slowly down the second floor hallway, pausing to poke his head into each room in search of Fred.  He received one or two invitations for company, and narrowly missed a left to the jaw when he opened first and knocked after, but he still didn't find the woman of his dreams.  Until, that is, he knocked on the last closed door.

"Go away," was the muffled response, but he paid it no mind.  He knew the sound of his girl's voice, even when she'd been crying.

Slowly he opened the door.

"Fred, I'm coming in," he warned.  "We need to talk, baby."

Quickly he opened the door and slipped in, closing it firmly behind him.  There were already far too many opportunities for an audience around here; there was no need to make things easy.

"There's nothing to say," she mumbled into the towel she held pressed against her eyes.

Gunn reached over and lightly tugged at the towel, gradually revealing Fred's tear-stained face.

"We've been saying that for weeks, and all it's gotten us is hiding out in a creepy bathroom."

Surprise pulled her head from the towel more than his gentle tone.  She glanced around the room, taking in the jumble of leftover shampoos, conditioners, gels, lotions, razors and towels taking up almost every inch of counter space.  Precariously dangling from the shower rod was a wide display of loofahs and body puffs.  A small sign, warning "Slay It, Don't Spray It," was carefully taped to the corner of the mirror, just above the rack of toothbrushes.

It looked, in short, like a bathroom populated by a large number of occasionally inconsiderate females. 

"Creepy?" she asked doubtfully.

Gunn glanced around the same room and briskly rubbed his hands on his arms.

"Don't you feel it?"

"It's... just a bathroom."  She smiled in polite confusion as she folded up the hand towel and placed it on the counter.  "Isn't it?"

Gunn had followed Fred upstairs to talk about the past, but this wasn't exactly the part he wanted to revisit.  But if he wanted to preach the value of honesty, he figured he'd better make the first offer.

"Bad things," he said slowly, "things that hurt you... they can leave a mark on a place, kind of like, I don't know, a stain or a smell or something.  And I... feel it.  Sometimes," he added quickly.  "Not always.  Thought I learned to keep it out, but I guess with the Beast and Angelus and all..." he swiped his hand over his head, thinking back over the past few weeks.  "Shoulda known it wasn't working when we got to that crazy mansion of Angel's.  There's this spot near the fireplace... it's like it's screaming at me."

Fred stared at him silently for a moment, remembering all the terrible places they had been together over the past two years.  What they had seen was hard enough to carry the weight of; she couldn't begin to imagine having to see beyond all the past pains to even get to the new.  It also made her realize there was a question she had never asked him.

"Is that why you started hunting vampires?"  Her hand tightened on top of the folded towel, scrunching the soft cloth between suddenly nerveless fingers.  "To stop the... marks... before they get made?"

His strained expression softened at her words.  "Lot of people would think it was nuts, huh?"

"They don't know you."

"Can't exactly say I know me anymore," he admitted.  "Some of things I've done lately... never in a million years thought I could."

Fred looked away, accidentally confronting her image in the slightly streaky mirror.  She shivered at the sight; hers was not a face she recognized lately either.

"It's my fault," she mumbled.  "I wanted to keep you out of it.  I went to Wesley because I wanted to keep you out of it.  But you..." she balled both hands into fists and raised them in the air, trying to drag the words from the aether, "you have this thing where you have to try and save people even if they don't deserve to be saved and..."

"Baby, I wasn't trying to save him; I just didn't want you to get in too deep."

She stared at Gunn, aghast at his words.  

"Do you think I don't know that, Charles?  Don't you think I know it was me that you were really trying to save, even though...," this time she fought back her sob, though it took her a moment to compose herself enough to continue.  "Even though I didn't deserve it.  And even though the last, I mean the absolute last thing in the universe I wanted was to drag you into it."

This time it was Gunn who was at a loss.

"Where else was I supposed to be?  We're a team, you and me.  Least that's what I thought.  Your fights are my fights.  Someone hurts you... they answer to me."

"And what about when I'm the one that hurts you?" she asked softly.  "What about when I'm the one who takes everything you are and everything you believe and makes you throw it away to save me from myself?"

He took a step towards her, his hands slowly rising from his sides to reach out to her.  "Fred, you gotta believe I never..."

"Gunn!"

Both Gunn and Fred jerked their heads towards the closed door, and the hallway on the other side from when the shout had come.

"Damn!" Gunn swore softly.  

"Gunn?  Fred?  Where are you?"

The voice was thin and high-pitched, the shaded tones of panic growing stronger with each word.

Gunn looked quickly at Fred, gauging the odds of being able to remain in hiding long enough to settle things.  His lover saw the thought in his eyes, however, and disagreed before he'd even said a word.

"We're in here!" she called out, slipping past Gunn to open the door.  

Glumly he followed her into the hallway.  SITs were coming out of the bedrooms, and it seemed even out of the literal woodwork to find out the latest call to disaster, currently being broadcast by Dawn.

"What's up?" he asked with resignation.  

"Angel went after Buffy... at least we think he did," she said breathlessly.  "And then Spike went after Angel... or so he says... and Faith went after Spike, except I still don't trust a word she says even if Angel seems to think she's..."

"Dawn," he interrupted impatiently, "I know all this.  Cut to a different chase."

Dawn sucked in a huge breath of air in preparation for dropping her bombshell, so huge of a breath, in fact, that she began hiccupping.  Between the hiccups and her usual stream-of-consciousness speech pattern, her words should have been almost unintelligible.  Instead they emerged with a chilling clarity.

"Anya came in after Spike and Faith left.  Except it wasn't Anya, it was the First. She turned into Buffy's principal... the dead one, not the live one...and now Xander thinks Spike killed Anya.  You know last night, when he was missing?  He ran out... Xander ran out."  Tears began to fill her large brown eyes.    "And I think he's after Spike and I'm not sure if having Faith out there too is a good thing because I don't think she likes either of them and Spike can hurt people now, but if he doesn't hurt Xander then Xander's gonna kill him.  And then Buffy will never ever forgive him."

* * * * *

"Why didn't you ever say any of this before?"  Buffy reached up and stroked Angel's fire-warmed cheek as she leaned deeper into the sofa cushion and the arm resting around her shoulders.  "Not about the stuff that happened to you; I know you're not psychic or anything."

"That would be Cordy," he agreed.  A moment later he added with a small frown, "Though not lately."

She brushed her thumb across his lips, both to end any further discussion of Cordelia, and to grasp his chin between her thumb and fingers.  Her small hand gently but firmly kept his face, and hopefully his attention, directed towards her.

"I'm talking about the feelings, the things you wanted.  Why couldn't you have said that four years ago, before things got so horribly messed?"

There were still so many things Angel wanted to tell Buffy about the past four years; now that they were finally talking he wanted to share everything with her, even the things he knew would disappoint her.  But at least now he'd told her enough to show what turned a solitary guilt-stricken vampire into a father, a friend, a businessman, and an occasional horse's ass.

It was a beginning, instead of another unhappy ending.

"Because it wasn't true then, not all of it," he confessed.  "I was what was messed then, Buffy, and I needed time to get things straight."

She turned away reluctantly, slipping out of the circle of his arms and off the sofa to stand before the fire.  There was a confidence about Angel now, a surety that she found comforting as well as alluring.  But to see that hopeful light in his eyes and not feel the same assurance in herself only twisted the knife deeper. 

"Great.  You get things straight while I'm making a Slinky out of my life."  She shook her head, caught somewhere between tears and laughter at the sheer stupidity of it all.  "You figure out who you are and all I have to show for the last four years is a truckload of who I don't want to be's bump-bump-bumping down the stairs."

Angel quickly joined her in front of the fireplace, sliding his arms around her waist and gently pulling her unresisting form back against his own.

"I think that's where it starts, Buffy," he said softly.  "And trust me, if you've already got a truckload you're way up on me.  It took me 26 wasted years of life, a hundred years of regret... and most of all, losing you... to give me a clue who I _didn't want to be."  _

She turned her head to the side so that she could look up into his serious brown eyes.  "And who's that guy you're so down on?"

"The one who lives his life without you."

Buffy looked at him silently for a moment, trying to absorb his words and the impact they could have on her life.  For all his love of poetry, Angel wasn't exactly the quickest guy, or the smoothest, with the hearts and flowers talk.  She had a feeling it was his way of facing the horrors of his past – if he forced himself to be honest with everyone, he wouldn't be able to lie to himself either.  For Buffy it had always added an extra measure of sweetness to his compliments, knowing they came from so deep in his heart, fighting their way past the dragon of his guilt.  

Tonight, though, they meant something more.  The words he'd just uttered were a commitment, of a sort, and if she accepted them in the spirit in which they were offered she was making a commitment of her own.  One she possibly... make that probably... had no right to make at this point in her screwed-up life.

"Maybe that guy knew when to get when the getting was good."

"I'd rather know when it's time to stop running away."

"Running's good," she said lightly.  She forced herself to break contact with his dark eyes and stared instead into the fire, whose flames were not nearly as hypnotic as the glow she had just been basking in.  "It gets you places.  Really fast, too."

"It doesn't get you anywhere if you don't stop," he countered.  "A long time ago you tried to tell me that, but I wasn't ready to understand.  Now I do."

"A little late, don't you think?"

"Call me a slow learner."

* * * * *

Spike crept down the hallway, towards the sound of voices.  He should've known to come here first, he berated himself.  Oldest trick in the book, this was.  Get everyone over to Buffy's house, all waiting for the Slayer to come back from her appointed rounds, and meanwhile the mansion is standing all empty.  Empty, that is, except for that same slayer and her precious ponce.

* * * * *

"And what are you going to call me," she asked, "when all the cozy firelight and nice romantic apocalypses are over?"  Buffy couldn't look at him; she stiffened her spine and pulled her arms tight against her body so that no part of her was touching Angel as she spoke.  "When it's just you and me... and Spike standing right between us, big as life and twice as annoying?  Because you can't tell me he won't be there, in your head if no place else."

"So you're saying Darla is always going to be lurking in the corners too?"  He made a show of glancing around the Great Hall.  "Guess it's a good thing I like big houses."

"What?"  She frowned.  "No, Darla has nothing to do with us... this."  

"Why not?"  His voice was low and steady, though it took all of his control to make it so.  "Aren't you going to think of her every time you see my son, her son?  The son you and I are never going to have together?"

Angel's words brought Buffy up short.  When she had first learned of Connor's parentage she had forced herself to fight back the jealousy, dragging out all the reasons it was illogical and unfair even as visions of stakings danced through her head.  But that seemed like years ago now.

"When I see Connor," she said, feeling her way through the minefield of betrayals both real and perceived, "all I think of is you.  What you got to experience... and what you missed."

"And when I see Spike..."

"You see red," she interrupted, whirling around to confront him.  "Or green.  You're like a traffic signal without the caution light.  You move straight from 'stop' thinking to 'go' for throat."

He forbore from mentioning that traffic lights normally did move straight from 'stop' to 'go'.  Buffy had always been a little sensitive on the subject of driving.

"Yes, I get jealous, but so what?"  Angel shrugged; as his insecurities were slowly dissipating, his jealous streak was as well, but he was the first to admit it was a work in progress.  "I was jealous of Riley too, and even Xander, once upon a time."

"Shut up," she exclaimed, pressing a hand to her cheek in mock astonishment.  "You were jealous of Riley?"

He ignored the jibe, but winced a little as honesty compelled him to continue.  "And, well, Ford... but I was kind of right about him.  And, okay, there was also that guy Owen.  And Scott..."

"Scott?" she broke in with an amazed laugh.  "Oh Angel, if you only knew."

Angel took a calculated risk and reached out to rest his hands lightly on her shoulders.  This time she didn't stiffen or pull away, although she didn't step into his arms either.  Still, he took is as a good sign. 

"The point is that even though I was jealous of them, and maybe I still am a little because of the part of your life they got to share, they don't matter now.  They're in the past."

* * * * *

Spike ducked his head around the corner and very nearly strode into the Great Hall when he saw the two of them cuddling in front of the fire.  Angel had his hands all over _his _girl, the girl he had just killed for, as though he'd done anything to earn the right.  As though Angel had ever killed a girl just to make Buffy's life a little easier.  Not hardly, Spike sniffed silently.

It was only a need to hear Buffy's answer that kept Spike in his hiding place.  Not that he should have been able to hide from her; the knowledge that she didn't sense him made things that much worse.  She was the Slayer, the Chosen One to hunt vampires, and for that she should be able to sense them at close range.  To say nothing of the relationship they'd had; she should have some sort of sense of him based on that alone.  But no, his useless sire, who also should have been able to sense him if he wasn't so bloody... useless... had obviously scrambled Buffy's senses to the point where she hadn't got a one left.

As usual, Angel had mucked everything up but good.

* * * * *

"And you really think you can let Spike stay in the past, all tucked away in a dresser drawer with mothballs on top?"  She wanted to believe him; she wanted it more than anything.  But the idea was about as likely as Cordelia being a success as a higher being.

"If you can leave Darla with him for company."

"That was different," Buffy protested.  "I don't blame you for her.  She wanted to drag you down to her level and she messed with your head to do it.  And for a little while you were, well, dumb enough to fall for it."

"How is that different from what Spike did to you?"

Dammit, why did he always have to ask the stumpers just when she thought she'd won the argument?

"He said he loved me," she answered slowly, "and I wanted to believe him."  A harsh laugh boiled up from some lost place inside of her, perhaps the place that had first led her to Spike.  "How deeply sick is that?"  

"Sick to want to believe you're loved?"  Delicately, he probed a little deeper, sensing there were wounds yet to be seen, let alone healed.  "Or do you mean wanting to believe that you're worth being loved... but not to be sure?"

She didn't answer; he'd struck a little too close to the bone.

"You're asking the wrong guy that one, Buffy.  Even with all I told you tonight, you still don't know half the stupid things I've done because I just couldn't get it through my head that anyone could know me... really know me... and still care."

"But to want to believe even after he tried to... I mean how stupid could I be?"

Warning bells were clamoring in his head.  The feelings he was sensing in her were only too familiar, but they were nothing Buffy should have to deal with.

"Hey," he said sharply, "I don't care what he said he felt, or what you wanted him to say – it doesn't excuse what he did.  Do _not beat yourself up over this."_

"_You're telling _me_ not to buy a ticket for a guilt trip?"_

"Do you know a more experienced tour guide?"  His mouth twisted into a pained smile.

She dropped her head and pressed her hands over her face, though she wasn't sure if it was Angel she couldn't face, or the reflection of the Buffy he thought she was that shone in his dark eyes.  Through the shield of her fingers, she mumbled, "God, I'm just such..." bitter memories rose like bile, "I'm such a Debbie."

Angel's crooked smile turned into a frown.  "A debbie?  You lost me."

"She was this girl... she had this boyfriend..." she raised her head, "It doesn't matter."  

She and Angel had never spoken about his first day back from hell, or the fact that his mind took a later train.  They both had so much guilt about that time in their lives, and so far Fate had never offered them enough down time to cope with it.  

"I just mean that I was so desperate, so pathetically desperate, that I would have done anything to make myself believe he could love me.  To make myself believe anyone ever could again.  How can you look at me the same way you used to when I sank that low?"

"You know, in painful, gory detail, about how low I've sunk over the centuries, but you still love me, don't you?"  He paused, fixing his eyes firmly on hers.  "Don't you?"

* * * * *

Spike leaned forward, until he was almost in the room with them.  _She didn't... she couldn't.  There was no way his Slayer, the one he'd just killed for, thank you very much, was going to tell the Vamp of La Mancha that she still loved him.  Buffy was his, not Angel's, and in just a second she was going to..._

A hand on his shoulder, hurling him backward down the hallway and toward the patio, interrupted his train of thought.  

* * * * *

"What was that?" Buffy asked.  

Angel followed her gaze to the doorway that led to the hallway, but there was nothing to see.  Even if there had been, he wasn't sure if it mattered at the moment.  To Angel, all that mattered was Buffy's answer to a very important question.

"Whatever it is, it's gone.  And we're here and you haven't answered me.  Do you still..."

"Love you?"  She smiled and shook her head at his blindness.  To her own mind she had been embarrassingly obvious.  "Angel, I've spent most of the last seven years trying not to... but I can never seem to shake it."

"Don't."

She wasn't sure if he was asking her or telling her, or maybe both, but it didn't really matter.  As she'd told him, there didn't seem to be a way around it.  

"You're not going to give up on this, are you?" she asked quietly.

"No."

A wistful note crept into her voice.  "Promise?"

"I'd say 'cross my heart and hope to die'... but it's a little late for that."

Buffy offered a watery smile; she knew he'd been hoping for more, but the cloud of memories was so thick around her head it was getting a little hard to even breathe.

"You don't do so great with crosses anyway," she murmured.

The look in Angel's eyes told her that he remembered the same night she did.  And his next words told Buffy he also remembered how it ended.

"But I do promise I won't give up this time, Buffy.  Not on you, and not on us."

Against every rational thought in her head, Buffy stepped into the arms he was holding out to her, and pressed her cheek to the small hollowed spot in Angel's chest created with her in mind.

"What are we going to do now?" she asked with a resigned sigh.

He rested his cheek against the warm cloud of her hair and uttered a quick, silent prayer of thanks for the miracle that kept finding him no matter how hard he tried to hide.

"We're going to think very carefully about what we've always done before... and then do the opposite."

* * * * *

"Xander, wait up!"  

Willow called out to him as she tried to make up the distance longer legs and anger had created between them, but Xander didn't seem to hear her.  He was too caught up in the race to find Spike before his own guilt could find him.

"I'm gonna kill him," Xander muttered.  "This time I'm gonna do it.  I don't care what Buffy says or Dawn or anybody; I'm just gonna grab him by his scrawny neck and stake his undead ass once and for all.  If I had done it before, after he tried to hurt Buffy, Anya would still be..." he stopped, unable to continue the thought.

Willow reached out and managed to catch him by the sleeve.

"You don't know that," she insisted.  A hard tug on his sleeve almost ripped it from his shirt but it did stop Xander's headlong flight, at least momentarily.  She quickly stepped in front of him, not sure if she was trying to block him or shield him.  "You don't know it was him."

"Yes, I do," he growled.  "He was missing last night and so was she and now she's..." his mind veered from the words he was about to commit to air.  "It was him; it was Spike."

Willow couldn't stand to see Xander in so much pain, but almost as hard to bear were the memories his emotions stirred up.  She'd been thinking so much about Tara the past few days; in a weird way she almost felt like all the negative energy created from her pain had reached out and claimed Anya.  She had to find a way to make it right, to make her suffering mean something.  It was the least she could do for Xander, and for Tara.

"Stop thinking about Spike," she begged Xander.  "Think about her.  We shouldn't be looking for him; we need to find Anya.  You need to find Anya," she finished gently, stressing the pronoun.

Her words pierced Xander's shroud of anger, letting in the first glimmerings of the pain he would have to endure before he reached the other side.

"I..." he looked at her helplessly, "I'm scared, Will."

She slipped her hand into his and squeezed it tightly.  "I know."

* * * * *

Spike quickly got his feet beneath him, but Faith kicked him again before he had a chance to finish standing up.  The blow wasn't quite the surprise of the first, though, and he managed to make a shoulder roll carry him onto the patio, and out of the range of her long legs.

"Bloody hell!  What do you think you're doing, woman?" 

"You're what, 120?  130?"  She crossed her arms over her chest and smirked at him as he warily rose to his feet.  "You still don't know three's a crowd?"

"You don't travel in the right circles," he grumbled, brushing the soil and dried leaves from his leather pants.  

"Promises, promises," Faith scolded him.  "Your problem, Sparky, aside from a big ol' thang for Marilyn," her scornful gaze swept over his bleached head, "is that you don't know when to quit.  Now normally I like that in a guy, but on you it's looking kind of... pathetic."

Spike cast an uneasy glance at the mansion Faith was currently barring his access to.  Buffy should have stormed out by now, or sent Angel flying out of a window.  She should have made some overt, and violent, gesture to indicate that her ex was way out of line with the love talk and he'd better stop if he knew what was good for him.  The fact that there were no body parts being torn asunder seemed to suggest that they were being put to other uses.

"Yeah, well, guess what?" he growled.  "There's a sucker born every minute, but this one's already dead and been buried."  

He turned on his heel and stalked towards the steps that would carry him up to the street again.  Faith threw a quick, curious look back at the mansion, and then ran after him.

"So," she called out, trying to sound casual, "where are we going now?  Gonna do anything I can kill you for?"

He grunted in reply.

"My standards aren't real high," she offered.

"Yeah, heard that."  

She caught up with him at the top of the staircase and grabbed his arm, almost knocking him off the landing as she tried to spin him around to face her.

"I just want to know if I need to go back in and change, or is the stake I'm wearing okay?"

His bitter gaze met hers and then slid past, fixing once more on the faint, flickering glow of firelight shining through the windows.

"You're so anxious to play with the big kids, what say I show you something about that 'three's a crowd' idea you're all worked up about?  Now that I grew a new pair, I'd say it's time to road test 'em."  He focused on Faith once more, something ugly in the smirk he was trying to force his lips into.  "We can visit my good buddy, Anya."  

* * * * *

To Be Continued 


	8. Chapter 8

 SEQ CHAPTER \h \r 1Dead End

**Part 8**

By Gem TC \l1 "

"Maybe we shouldn't be in here."  Buffy looked around Angel's bedroom... she couldn't just call it _the bedroom any longer... with an uneasy anticipation.  This all felt a little too familiar, and familiar in the good way that meant it was a bad way.  "I mean we're the only ones here and no one's going to walk in on us all the way back here and..."_

Angel rested his hand gently on the small of her back, not pushing her into the room but reminding her of the reason he had suggested leaving the Great Hall.  It was just such gestures that they could not afford to be seen.

"And that's the point, isn't it?  A chance to talk without having to look over our shoulders the whole time to see if anyone's going to walk in on us."  

"Okay," she said slowly, "so the privacy thing is nice, and a nice change in my life, that's for sure.  But we have a, well, a history with alone time, remember?"  Buffy turned her head and glanced up at him, a wistful smile darting across her lips.  "A really intense, really amazing, really leads us into things we are so not ready for right now kind of history."

"I know, I know."  He quickly removed his hand from her back and took a step away; the last thing he wanted to do was push her.  "I'm not suggesting that we do anything right now but talk – I swear I'm not.  But we agreed that anyone could come back at any time, and if we want to keep on talking it has to be somewhere where no one can find us.  The one place I can guarantee they won't walk in is here."

"Why?  It sure doesn't seem like they give you much in the way of space wherever you are; you're like the Maytag Man, but with swords."  She paused for a moment and then added, "And a way better uniform."

"I'm not really sure why they don't come in."  Angel scratched his head, mulling over an inconsistency he had previously accepted with unquestioning relief.  "When Connor was a baby they all wandered in and out at will.  But when he was gone... when he was in the hell dimension... they just stopped."

"Right when you needed them most," Buffy whispered.  

Logically she knew that she had nothing to reproach herself for in that department; she'd had no idea that Connor even existed, let alone that he had been kidnapped.  And if she had known she would have been right by Angel's side storming the gates of hell to get his son back.  But logic had nothing to do with confronting the remembered pain in her lover's eyes.

"I guess grief isolates you because it scares most other people away."  He shook his head, trying to force the memories back into their appointed place and proportion.  Wallowing wouldn't help either of them.  "And you take the space because it gives you a place to hide."

Without conscious thought, Buffy wandered over to the large wooden chest that hid all of her most treasured possessions.  Suddenly she wondered if the mementos, little bits and pieces of their shared past, mattered as much to Angel as they still did to her.

"I guess there's all kind of space," she mused, running her finger along the carved rim of the tall chest.  "Sometimes people back off with their bodies and sometimes they just disappear with their heads.  And sometimes," she released a tiny sigh, "they do both."

"I thought you were the one who tried to keep them out of your life?" he asked quietly.  

She glanced over her shoulder at him and smiled briefly, acknowledging both the truth and the illusion in his words.

"I'm not trying to compare this to losing your son – I know it's not even close."  She stared down at her hand as it rested flatly, protectively, over the past she could not abandon even if others might.  "But... maybe some of them could have put up more of a fight, instead of say, moving to another continent."

Giles.  In all the confusion created by the First and the SITs, Rona's death, not to mention the ever-present annoyance of Spike, Angel had forgotten about Giles.  His absence, after all the other losses Buffy had suffered in her young life, and especially after her mother's death, must have devastated her.

Not that she'd ever tell Giles such a thing.  Angel knew her too well to expect that.

"Maybe when all this is over you can explain it to him."

She shrugged, feigning a stoicism her battered heart could no longer command.

"And he'll what?  Move back to hold my hand?"

"You don't have to live in the same town to be close."  Angel ran a hand over the soft spikes of his dark hair, trying to find a gentle way of reminding Buffy how very lucky she was in some ways.  "It isn't like when I grew up.  Now you have telephones, e-mail, airplanes... photographs."    

"Indoor plumbing," she added with a wry smile.  "Yeah, I get it: the wonders of the modern age."  Abruptly the jaded young woman morphed into a lonely little girl.  "But it's not the same."  

Angel couldn't stand to see the hurt in her eyes and not do anything about it.  Before he even realized what he was going to do, she was in his arms.  After that, thinking was the last thing on his mind.

* * * * *

Wesley rubbed his aching forehead and wished he were anywhere, even in Pylea, rather than trapped in this asylum.  Every attempt he made to restore calm and order ultimately blew up in his face as those he was trying to protect went blithely off to their own destruction.

"Angel wanted you to stay here, Connor," he said, repeating the phrase for at least the fourth time in as many minutes.  "You've already seen you can be of help – we wouldn't have been nearly so quick to realize that the being who appeared to be Anya was actually the First," he glanced warily at Cordelia, "that is to say the First _Evil_, were it not for you."

"I'm going to find my father."  Connor had his own mantra to chant, and he had no intention of letting Wesley disrupt his rhythm.  "Gunn is chasing Xander, who's chasing Spike, who's chasing my father.  If I find Angel I can bring all of them back before anyone else gets hurt."  He stood uncomfortably close to Wesley, attempting to intimidate him as much with his close proximity as the unyielding expression in his blue eyes.  "I'm the only one who can track him.  You know I'm right."

"I know Angel wanted you to stay here."  _Away from Spike_, Wesley's mind added, even if his voice was smart enough not to share the thought.  

A flash of bitterness twisted Connor's face.  "You're the one who always does what he thinks is best for everyone else, no matter what they say.  If you don't care what my father wants, why should I?"  

He didn't give Wesley a chance to respond, assuming the stunned Watcher could think of a reply to the charge.  Instead, Connor wheeled around, grabbed the crossbow Lorne had delicately been strumming like a harp, and stalked out the door.

"Connor!" Wesley called out just before the door slapped shut.  "Try the mansion first!"

Connor didn't bother to answer, or even acknowledge, the Watcher.

"Splendid," Wesley sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.  "Anyone else care to storm off into the night, or have the theatrical opportunities for that gesture been quite exhausted?"

* * * * *

Faith had to hurry to keep up with Spike; despite the fact they were nearly the same height, the vampire's anger was fueling him in a way not even the mayor's taunting voice could inspire her.

"What's the rush, Blondie?  Anya doesn't know you're on your way, so she's got no reason to beat it."

"Bugger off," he growled, not bothering to look at her.

"I thought you wanted an audience."

"I don't give a damn what you thought."  

He strode across a side street, paying no attention to the car headed towards him, or the car behind it that became one with its rear bumper when the first car came screeching to a halt just inches from the flapping edge of his leather duster.  Faith paused long enough to take a quick look at the cars; both drivers appeared to be alive and honking, which put them one up on most people Spike had encountered over the past century.

"Hey!" she called out as she hurried once more to catch up.  "If you're going to kill people, can you do it without exploding gas tanks?  Now that I can score a smoke without promising to be someone's Valentine, I'd also like to try it without catching on fire."

"Nobody asked you to come."

"Yeah, actually you did," she pointed out.  "Not that I wouldn't have come anyway, just to make sure you didn't do anything Angel would regret."

Spike really wanted to kill her, if only to stop the constant jabbering in his ear.  But killing Faith constituted a favor for Buffy, and right now he was just not in the mood to be so generous or forgiving.

"Always Angel," he snarled.  "Every bloody thing in the universe revolves around what Angel wants, what Angel needs."  He stopped abruptly and looked at her at last.  "You're as bad as she is, you know, and it's not like he gives a damn about you except as the redemption of the week."

"And you're just the love of Buffy's life," she mocked.  "Which is why you're paying Xander's ex a booty call while Angel's making time with his."  

With relief, Spike noticed they were standing across the street from the Magick Box.  Anya didn't spend much time at her apartment since her lover boy had walked, and she wasn't at Buffy's, so she must be here.  She had no other life.

"Tell you what, pet."  He walked past her and began to cross the street, still apparently talking to her though he couldn't be bothered to glance back at her over his shoulder.  "You stand here and tell yourself all about what your precious Angel wants you to do and why you should do it.  Meantime, I have a lady I'm keeping waiting."

She wanted to let him walk away; she'd done her good deed for the night, and so far all it had gotten her was a little night air and a lot of verbal abuse.  For that she could as easily have stayed at Buffy's and opened a window.  

Still, a promise was a promise, even a promise made to Wesley.

With a sigh, and a further promise to make Wesley pay for letting her volunteer for this guard dog duty, Faith took off after Spike once again.

* * * * *

"She's not here."  

Willow took Xander's hand again as they stood side-by-side on the street, staring up at Anya's bedroom window.

"I know the apartment's dark, Xander, but we don't know when… we need to go up."  She dropped his hand, stepped up onto the curb and started towards the door.  She stopped when she realized that Xander hadn't moved.  "Xander?  Do you want me to go up first?"

"She's not here," he repeated flatly.  "She was going to the Magick Box that night.  She..." he swallowed hard, "I don't think she ever left."

Willow stood indecisively in the middle of the sidewalk.  "You can't know when, Xander.  I mean you didn't talk to her today, right?"  Although the light from the street lamp was dim, she still saw the flash of hurt cross his face.  "Not that you needed to talk to her every day or anything.  I mean it's not like you were married or... or like I have a brain in my head.  Xander, I am so sorry."  Quickly she rejoined him on the street.  "We can go to the Magick Box first and then come back if we... if we need to."

He looked at her blindly.  "She's not here, is she, Will?  She's not anywhere anymore."

* * * * *

Buffy wriggled slightly on the bed and sighed as her muscles accustomed themselves to sensations she'd thought lost and nearly forgotten.  

Anything that felt this good just had to be illegal.

"Now this," she murmured blissfully, "this I remember."   

Angel slipped his hands beneath the hem of her blouse and slowly slid them upwards, relishing the little shivers he could feel chasing up and down her spine.

"Ooo," she groaned into the pillow.  "That's it; right there."  She tilted her head to the side and lazily opened one eye, the command clear in her voice if not in her relaxed pose. "Harder."

He didn't bother to smother his grin as his thumbs sank obligingly into the bands of taut muscle stretching across her back, paying particular attention to her shoulder blades as requested.

"Nobody gives massages like you," she sighed, burrowing happily into the pillow again.  "Mmm, and you're right.  Works much better without the shirt in between."

He was tempted to suggest she remove it altogether, but she had been right when she talked about their history with 'alone time.'  And right now as she lay stretched out on his bed beneath him, almost purring with every touch of his hands, his libido was requiring more energy to keep in check than a dozen Angeluses.

"I'm an old hand at this," he quipped instead, struggling to keep the mood light.

"Ha, ha," she said half-heartedly.  "Do you do comedy routines with your foot massages too?"

He seized the opportunity, though not without regret, and slid his hands one last time down her bare back as he shifted his body off of her legs and over to the other side of the bed.  

"You're going to need to roll over for this," he advised as he ran his hand down her leg.

Buffy rolled over as requested, but as Angel leaned down to reach for one of her feet she sat up and placed her hand on his shoulder to restrain him.

"Angel, I don't need a foot massage."  She smiled impishly at him.  "In fact, if it felt as good as what you just did to my back I don't think I could stand one and still stand.  Just," she patted the pillow next to her, "lie down next to me."

He hesitated, looking deep into her eyes.  "Are you sure?"

She nodded and patted the bed again.

Slowly he lay down by Buffy's side, carefully slipping one arm beneath her shoulders as her arms wound around his chest.  This time it was the hollow of his shoulder that received the caress of her warm cheek, and judging by her sigh Angel felt himself rated substantially higher than the finest down pillow.

"I remember this too."  She closed her eyes and felt herself began to drift.  "Sometimes at night I try to pretend we're here, together, like the good part of the good old days."

"I've played a few rounds of that game myself," he confessed.  It had gotten him through many a long and bitter day.

"Can't believe I'm so tired," she mumbled against his shirt.  

"You've been running on adrenaline for months."  He reached out and gently traced the curve of her jaw with his fingertip.  "Sleep." 

It had been so long since she had felt this safe, secure in her heart and in her mind instead of just the paltry safety of her body.  Even as little as an hour before, she had been so wired she felt like she might explode at any instant.  Then Angel had put his arms around her, so gently, so tentatively, and she felt it: his fear that he might let her down.  Someone else was giving her all the strength he had, and worrying it might not be enough.  Someone who understood she might have nothing left to offer him in return.  How then could she not trust him?  

Now all she wanted to do was relax and luxuriate in the feeling for the few brief minutes Fate would give her to call her own.  

"Few minutes," she promised with drowsy sincerity.

Angel threaded his fingers through the silken strands of her hair, resting his cool palm against the soft column of her throat.  "I'll wake you when we need to go."

A tiny frown creased her brow at his words.  The future; she didn't want to think of any future beyond this room, beyond this bed.  The past had taught her how lonely the future could be, and it would take a lot of time to soften the edges of those memories.

"I missed you so much," she whispered.  Without conscious thought, her arms tightened around his chest, holding fast to this hard-won reality.  "I tried not... I tried so hard..."

"Shsh," he murmured, brushing his lips across her temple.  "No more missing... not ever."

"Unbelievable."

Angel sat bolt upright, inadvertently rolling Buffy off to the other side of the bed as her arms automatically sprang open to release him.

"Connor?"  He whispered the name, more out of disbelief than shame.  "What are you... why are here?"

Buffy collected herself more quickly than her once and future lover, although a small portion of her brain noted the fact that the shirt she clutched close to her chest was actually not yet unfastened.

"What happened?  Is everyone okay?" she asked urgently.

Connor switched his scathing glance from his father to Buffy, but the expression in his blue eyes didn't warm by so much as a degree.

"We don't know," he answered tersely, and then turned on his heel and stalked down the hallway.

* * * * *

"So, my little spider plant, how are you and the sprout tonight?"  Lorne patted Cordelia on her knee as he sat down next to her, but it was obvious from the way she reflexively pulled her leg away that she resented either the name or the gesture.  "Darling girl, whatever is the matter?" he asked, his voice dropping low for privacy.

On the outside a bright, plastic smile instantly blossomed on her lips, a smile she hoped would mask the snarl that felt more natural.  As though she didn't have enough to do keeping all her plates spinning overhead, she also had to take time out to soothe the finer feelings of a demon.  Still, Cordelia would never leave things so awkwardly with one of the few friends she could call her own.

"I'm sorry, Lorne.  I'm just all... unsettled," she said vaguely, hoping he wouldn't press for details.

"It's not the little vamplet-to-be, is it?"

_She should have known better.  _

Lorne had switched from patting Cordelia's knee to resting a gentle hand on her stomach, but again he seemed to have hit the wrong switch in his friend.  This time she gave in to the snarl.  

"She is not a vampire.  She will never be a vampire."

He swiftly pulled his hand away and tucked both firmly in the large pockets of his yellow lounging jacket.  His clientele had early on taught him that just because someone didn't bite yesterday or the day before, that's no reason to stop being wary of the flashing pearly whites.

"Of course not, lamb ch... ia pet.  I just love chia pets, don't you?  They make me think of our Fred with a perm."  He smiled weakly, hoping he'd successfully diverted her from all thoughts of chopping, slicing or dicing.  "But don't you worry; we won't anything bad ever happen to your little... her, you said?  Our own Sugar 'N Spice Girl?  Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."  Her tone was still grim but she forced herself to meet his smile with one of her own, or at least a rough approximation.  "My baby is a girl.  A very special girl."

"Well that goes without saying.  But before we meet the new chickadee, is there anything I can do to make Mama Hen's life a little bit more comfortable?  You seemed so stressed, sugarplum."

"I just want Connor to come back."  She glanced at Lorne's red eyes and felt a tiny bit of her tension ease.  Apparently her open admission of concern had done what evasion had not; for once he didn't seem to be measuring her to see what was missing.  "I worry about him being out there alone, especially since he's not really alone.  Not with Spike out there."

She almost spat out the vampire's name, once more raising Lorne's antennae as well as his eyebrows. 

"Do you and the blond bombshell have some history?  A little hanky-panky you're afraid he'll tell Connor about?"

"God, no!" she burst out.  "I would never... he's a vampire!  I would never."

Lorne pulled back slightly, his curiosity reaching levels that would be unendurable if he weren't also becoming so worried.

"Well," he said slowly, "our very favorite man in black is a vampire too, and you didn't seem inclined to mind the look on him just a few short moons ago."

She should have known better, she grimly reminded herself.  Just because he was acting all friendly was no reason to let her guard down and pretend they could be anything approaching honest with each other.  Too much was at stake to trade it all away for a little venting.

"That was... different," she mumbled.  "I was different."

Lorne had no trouble believing that; in fact he was becoming convinced of it.  He attempted a bright smile and reached out to pat her shoulder, yanking his hand back at the very last second.

"Uncle Lorne knows just what you need, my little mother ship.  You need some bonding time with that crea... ture of delight you're carrying," he finished smoothly.  "Read to her, or better yet, sing to her."  He eyed her shrewdly, attentive for every nuance of her response.  "I'll even help get you started, if you'd like."

She saw the trap forming in his red eyes, and this time she had her answer ready for delivery before he closed his mouth.

"Thanks but no thanks, Lorne.  I'm really not up to a sing-a-long tonight."

"You could always go upstairs," he suggested.  "Find a room all to yourself and let 'er rip."

She put her hand on the arm of the sofa and made a show of struggling to her feet.  As expected, and to her everlasting amusement, Lorne, Wesley and Fred all rushed over to help her stand.  When the goal was achieved, she rested one hand on her hip and the other on her burgeoning midriff as she smiled down at the demon.

"Not the best phrase to use around a mom-to-be, Lorne," she cheerfully corrected him.  "You never know what I might be ripping when this baby decides to come out.  Or who."

* * * * *

Buffy and Angel scrambled off the bed, hastily smoothing clothing and hair before slipping down the hallway in pursuit of Angel's angry son.

"What do you mean 'we don't know' if everyone is okay?" Angel asked as soon as they entered the Great Hall.  Connor had put them at a disadvantage, walking in as he had done, but Connor's father was determined not to give way.  "What happened?  And why didn't you call if something did?"

Connor's lips twisted into a sour smile.  "Wesley tried.  She," he jerked his head at Buffy, "left her phone under a sofa cushion – we heard it ring.  Wesley tried yours over and over, but you never answered."

Angel's hands flew to his coat pockets an instant before his brain processed the sight of that same coat laying in a dark pool of leather on the floor by one of the sofas.  

"It... it's, umm, out here," he mumbled, carefully avoiding contact with his son's accusing eyes as he pointed out the offending garment.  "But I still should have heard the ring... beep... whatever you want to call it."

Buffy quickly crossed the room and picked up the duster, searching the pockets for the missing cell phone.  Once she retrieved it she took a quick look at the settings before she returned it to Angel.

"I think you had it set on vibrate."  She felt a telltale warmth creep across her cheeks as she mumbled, "I thought I felt... but there were other things going on and... well, with all that leather wrapped around it we... you... wouldn't have heard it."

Angel accepted the phone from Buffy, and resisted the urge to crush it like a beer can.  Once again modern technology had defeated him, but he refused to let his failures embarrass him.  If nothing else, admitting such failures only gave his loved ones more ammo for teasing.

"All right, Connor," he said with a sigh of resignation.  "What happened?"

"Shouldn't that be my question... Father?" his son asked, something approaching a leer darkening his thin face.  

Buffy winced at the anger in Connor's voice, and ached for the hurt she saw it create in Angel's eyes.  "Connor, this really wasn't..." she began.

"Buffy, please," Angel interrupted.  His voice was pleasant and calm on the surface, but she heard the undercurrent of steel that didn't bode well for his ill-mannered son.  "Connor, you are in no position to dictate anything about my love life, and you're certainly in no position to judge.  This is none of your business; leave it alone."

Connor stared at his father in shock.  When he had first walked into the bedroom, alerted to their presence by the sound of breathing and certain other noises he preferred not to dwell on, he had been primed to level guilt at his errant father with both barrels.  Although he couldn't admit it even to himself, experience had taught Connor it was the easiest of emotions to call upon in his dour parent, and the one most likely to produce the attention he needed.

Now, however, he had apparently struck the one area of Angel's life where guilt was finding it hard to gain purchase.  This placed Connor somewhat at a disadvantage.

"This... this is all my business," he stammered.  "I mean it's everyone's.  You're here... kissing... your old girlfriend, while everyone else is chasing all over town thinking you're hurt."

Angel shared a puzzled glance with Buffy.

"Why would they think I'm hurt?" he asked slowly, not bothering to correct Connor's impression.  Kissing or no kissing, what he did with Buffy was none of his son's business and he had no intention of letting Connor believe any differently. 

"You went out for blood," Connor spit out.  "You went out hours ago and..."

"Hours?" Buffy broke in.  "It couldn't be."  She raised her wrist to check her watch, and then blushed as she remembered Angel had slipped it off not long after they reached the bedroom, lest it provide a distraction.

"No one knew where you were," Connor continued, as though Buffy had never spoken.  "But your old friend Spike had a pretty good idea, since the two of you were gone at the same time."

"Oh god," Buffy moaned.  She pressed a hand to her mouth, continuing to revile herself through her outstretched fingers.  "I'm such a moron.  I knew this would happen."

"He went after you... to 'find' you... and Faith followed him to make sure he didn't do anything when and if he did find you."

"What, suddenly she's the big strong protective type?" Buffy snapped.  The hand over her mouth swung down to her side in a fist.  "Like if Angel and I were together I wouldn't bother to save him from Spike?"

"Buffy," Angel said, laying a gentle hand on her taut arm.  "Let him finish."

"But..."

"If I can get past the idea that I need someone... anyone... to defend me from Spike, you can get past the idea that Faith thinks it might need to be her," he said firmly.

She glared at him but remained silent, as he had requested.

"So Spike and Faith are looking for us," Angel prompted Connor, hoping to get things back on track sometime before his angry childe came storming through the door.  When and if such a confrontation happened, he wanted Connor already on his way back to Buffy's.

"Not just them," Connor answered grudgingly.  "That girl Anya came in after they left, except it wasn't really her."  He tried to block the memory of Xander's face when he knew, really knew, the truth, but he wasn't as good at hiding his feelings from his father as he'd once been; the darkness came through loud and clear.  "She had no smell, so I knew..."

"Anya?" Buffy whispered.  All shreds of anger fled, and in their place was only a deep ache.  "She's dead?  Oh Xander must be..."

"Devastated," Angel agreed, his stoic expression giving away none of the memories suddenly battering at his mind and heart.  

He remembered every excruciating hour and minute of the weeks following Buffy's death – he always would.  And he knew for her it was the same; no matter what future they carved out for themselves she would never completely shake the memories of the time he'd been in hell.

"I had to tell him.  He didn't want to believe me, but I had to tell him."  

Connor's voice had changed; without realizing it he had gone from anger with his father to a deep need for his understanding.  It was a change he was only too familiar with, and yet every time it surprised him.

"I know," Angel said soothingly.  "You had no choice."

"He thinks Spike killed her," Connor continued after a minute to compose himself.  "Last night, when she left Faith's group.  He went out to look for Spike, and Willow went with him.  Then Gunn went out after them and..."

"And you came here to get me."  Angel looked somberly at his son.  "Thank you."

Connor looked away; he didn't want his father to see the embarrassing gratitude in his eyes at this small shred of praise.

"Wesley said to try the mansion first," he mumbled.

"Angel, we have to find them," Buffy said urgently.  "Xander first, and then the others."  

Connor looked at her strangely; he hadn't gotten the feeling she and Xander were all that close.  

"Xander?" 

She saw the unspoken doubt in Connor's eyes and cold reality struck her hard, leaving a sick, sour feeling where her heart used to be.  

It was time for the curtain to go up again, and she had to be the one to raise it.

"I mean we need to find Xander before he tries to hurt Spike," she amended, hating every word almost as much as she hated herself in that moment.  "I can't let him do that."

Angel met her eyes, and silently, if reluctantly, agreed to the plea he saw in them.  Still, he tried to delay the inevitable.

"Have you tried to call Faith?" he asked his son.  "If she knows that Xander..."

His voice trailed off at the sight of Connor's shaking head.

"Kennedy... I think that's her name... she said Willow hasn't given it back yet.  She thinks it's probably still in her coat pocket."

"Strike two," Buffy sighed.  "And we're outta here."

"Can you give Connor and I a minute?" Angel asked quietly.  "I think he needs to understand something before any of us goes anywhere."

"No."

"Buffy..."

"I mean no, I don't think I should wait for you.  I'm going to go find Xander, and you should track down Spike and Faith.  Take Connor with you... or send him home.  Whatever.  But we can't do this as a team."

She was running across the Great Hall and out the door before Angel could find the words to frame an objection.

* * * * *

Spike pounded on the front door of the Magick Box, hearing the broken husk of the overhead bell slap against the wood from the force of his blow.  He did not hear Anya's voice, however, or see any sign of her when he tried to peer through the slats over the broken windows.

"Come on, Spanky, let's just go."

She made the mistake of accompanying her words with a tug to his coat sleeve.  In a flash his elbow snapped backwards and into her jaw, but he didn't bother to turn and enjoy the spectacle of a slayer taken by surprise, and taken flight.  His attention was riveted to a scrap of red fabric he glimpsed on the floor the former checkout counter.

"Anya!  I know you're in there, woman; let me in!"

He grabbed the doorknob again, rattling it impatiently when he realized it was no less locked than before.  Not that breaking it was a problem for him; he was a vampire, after all.  But Anya was so bleeding touchy about her damned shop, he grumbled to himself.  Breaking things didn't get this girl in the mood; if anything she got even chattier, and the last thing he was in the mood to do was listen to a woman talk.

"Hey," Faith snapped as she rose to her feet and rubbed her jaw.  "I've been really good with the party manners tonight, but there's only so far you can push me.  That wall," she pointed to the building on the opposite side of the alley she had just narrowly avoided colliding with, "was it."

Spike didn't bother to look where she was pointing; he barely noticed she was still talking.  

"There's something strange going on here," he murmured, more to himself than to Faith.  "You don't need to be some Marlowe wannabe to figure that out."  

"Strange because Anya doesn't want to invite the horny vampire currently breaking down her door into her store? Gosh, go figure."

"She doesn't know why I'm here," he growled.

"I'm guessing she's known you long enough to know it's not going to be in her own best interests," Faith pointed out, pushing her tact reserves to the limit.  "If she wanted to see you she would have let you in by now." 

Spike peered between the cracks again, and frowned when he realized the red cloth still hadn't moved.  Anya should have been storming the door by now and shouting at him to go away, assuming she wasn't going to drag him in and shag him on the floor.

With Anya, he just never knew.

"Anya!" he called again.  "I'm going to break this bloody door down in a minute if you don't open it."  He waited for a few seconds, straining to hear even the slightest sound of protest from within, but there was nothing.  "All right; have it your way.  One one-thousand, two one-thousand..."

"That's it, Spike, show her you're more than just another dumb blond," Faith jeered.  "Women love a man who can count to ten."

"... six one-thousand," he growled.  "Seven... seconds of my eternity I will never get back.  I've had enough of the fun and games."  Without further ado, he reached down and snapped the lock on the door, pushing it back with the other hand so hard that the abused wood broke free of the hinges when door met wall.

* * * * *

There was an uncomfortable moment of silence in the wake of Buffy's departure.  Father and son tried to look at each other, and both initially shied away from the effort.  Finally Angel broke the silence, though he had to turn away from his son to do it.

"Connor, there's something you need to understand about what you just walked in on," he began.

Connor's response was characteristically sarcastic.  "I understand, Father.  You've seen Cordy; you know I understand."

Angel struggled against the urge to physically remove the smirk from his son's face, the effort giving him a renewed appreciation for the difficulties his father had endured during his teen years.

Of course his father would have struck first and appreciated later.

With that thought in mind, Angel took a stronger grip on his self-control and forced himself to respond quietly.  "I'm not talking about what you saw us doing, or at least that's not all of it."  He turned slightly, capturing Connor's undivided attention with intensity of his dark gaze.  "There are undercurrents going on here... relationships and old vendettas... that you have no clue about.  And because you don't understand all of what is going on around you, I need you not to add this little scene into the mix.  I need you to not mention what you saw Buffy and I doing, or how we talked to each other.  That has to remain between us."

"Why?"  
  


"It's complicated," Angel hedged.  "As I said, there's a lot going on you don't see, and wouldn't understand if you did.  You don't know most of these people yet, and you have no idea what kind of lives they've led for the last few years.  Situations... and relationships... have been created for very specific reasons you can't understand."

"I'm not a child," Connor flared.

"I know, I know," his father hastily assured him.  "That's why I'm asking you to trust me without asking for an explanation.  If you were a child I'd try to break it down to give you some very simple reason not to say anything.  But you're an adult, so I need you to just do as I ask and trust that I wouldn't ask if it weren't literally a matter of life and death."

Connor felt the sway of his father's personality; he felt it washing over him in waves of immediacy and intensity.  But everything Holtz had ever taught him urged him to resist.

"And I'm supposed to trust you why?  Because of our long history together… Father?"

Connor could pack more irony and fury into one simple word than anyone Angel had ever met.  Hearing the way the boy's angry voice distorted the name 'father,' Angel felt a sadly familiar tug between the desire to wrap his arms around his son's shoulders, and wrap his hands around his neck.  

No matter how hard he tried to break through the walls Connor had erected, nothing would ever be able to bridge the gap created by his kidnapping.  Nothing would ever replace all that lost time, or the trust that should have been built during it.  And nothing would ever completely erase Angel's guilt over his failure to conquer that impossibility.  

But that was his problem, not Buffy's, Angel reminded himself grimly, and he was going to make sure it stayed that way.

"You're supposed to trust me because I lied to you once, and then told you the truth the next time I saw you.  You lied to me over and over, tried to kill me, and then lied to everyone else about it."  His dark eyes were flat now, showing no sign of the pain that lurked beneath every memory he was conjuring up.  "In the sad but true category, when it comes to being trustworthy my track record's actually better than yours... son."

Connor fumed in silence as his father slid past him and headed towards the door.  He had one poison arrow left in his arsenal, and for some strange reason he hesitated to use it.  It seemed too... mean.  But the sight of his father walking away from him, once again turning his back on his only child and just walking away, goaded Connor into speech.

"What about her?  She sent you to hell but you trust her?"

Angel stopped in his tracks, as Connor had intended.  Slowly the vampire forced himself to turn and face the boy, steeling himself for the anger he would see when their eyes met.  Strangely enough, though there was undoubtedly anger showing on Connor's thin face, for a change Angel sensed it was not directed solely at him.  Mixed in somewhere with all his abandonment issues and hellfire upbringing was a desire to defend his father, a desire that Connor seemed to find it as hard to believe as Angel.  And if that defensiveness had been directed at anyone other than Buffy, Angel would have rejoiced in it.

But it wasn't.

"I trust Buffy," Angel answered in the voice Connor had quickly learned meant the discussion was over.  "I trust her _because_ she sent me to hell, not in spite of it."

"That doesn't make sense," Connor snapped.

"Yeah, it does."  Angel close his eyes for a second, remembering that night, remembering that night in this very room.  When he could look at Connor again, his brown eyes were bleak.  "But I hope to god you never understand why."

* * * * *

 "She's been dead at least a day."  Spike stood up and took a step back from Anya's crumpled body.  "Has anyone seen her since the ruckus last night?"

"Ruckus?"  Faith's voice echoed his, rising in her disbelief.  "One of those girl died, Spike."

He shrugged it off.  Rona was of the past, the distant past as far as he was concerned.  It wasn't like her death actually helped the way it should have.  Now that would have made it, and her, memorable.

"The chit was your responsibility, not mine.  Come to think of it, so was Anya."  He looked down at the dead girl again, a flash of pity briefly overtaking his vulpine features.  "Poor old girl, it was bound to catch up with her one day.  Always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong people."

"With the right weapons."  Faith glanced down at the body, and then looked again, harder this time.  "Or maybe not."  

Her eyes narrowed as they focused on several dark marks on the bluish-white skin of Anya's throat.  She knelt down next to the girl, gently seizing her chin between her thumb and forefinger to turn Anya's head from one side to the other.

"There's no bite marks, just fingerprints."  She looked up at Spike and warily got to her feet.  "Someone snapped her neck.  Just like Rona."

It took a moment for her words, and the way she was watching his hands, to register.

"What, you think I did it?  Along with offing the other girl too, I suppose?  A regular Jack the Ripper I am."  

Spike was genuinely surprised, and more than a little insulted.  To be held responsible for things you did was bad enough, but he was beginning to see that was the natural inclination of the souled.  But to be held accountable for someone else's crimes?  Unthinkable, that's what it was.  Not to mention bloody unfair.

"Adds up for me."  Faith shrugged, trying to look casual despite her battle-ready stance.  "You got Rona first, and then when we all broke up to look for her, you picked off Anya."

"Knocking off a few shop girls along the way just to keep the muscles warmed up," he suggested with a sneer.  "Mind telling me why I was supposed to kill her?  I mean I obviously didn't get so much as a snack out of it, so why would I kill the only one of that ruddy bunch who still gave me the time of day?"

Faith tapped her chin in a show of deep thought.  "Hmm, could it be because you're a... vampire?"

"So's your precious Dark Knight.  Don't see you calling out the posse on him."

The idea hadn't even occurred to her, and Spike's comment made her realize how far she had come from the defensive loner who trusted no one, not even herself.  Actually she still wasn't always sure about herself, but she trusted Angel.

"Angel's had his soul a long time – as long as nobody tries to take it out for a walk without his body, he's got a pretty good grip on Angelus.  You, on the other hand, can barely keep your pants on, let alone your temper under control..."

"Isn't that the pot calling the kettle a slut?" he broke in.

"Actually, I was calling you a psychopath, but hey, whatever label works for you."  She shrugged and flashed him a bitter smile.  "Anyway, 120 years of successful murder and mayhem stacked up against a couple of months of unappreciated soulfulness... you do the math."

"I didn't kill her," he growled, feeling his aforementioned temper getting harder to manage with each succeeding word.  "I liked the girl, as much as I like any of that crew.  You always knew exactly where you stood with her."

"Don't you talk about her like that," growled a voice from the doorway.  "You didn't know her, so you don't get to talk like you did."

Faith felt the tension in the room shoot up another few degrees even as the temperature seemed to drop.  Slowly she turned on one heel, trying to keep track of Spike with one eye as she faced the new arrivals standing framed in the broken doorway.

"Xander, I don't think you want to come in here right now," she said slowly.

"Oh, you're so wrong, Faith."  He took one step across the threshold, and then another, pretending every second that his knees weren't about to fold underneath him.  "This is exactly where I'm supposed to be."

* * * * *

Buffy was halfway to Anya's apartment before she realized that she had no idea why she should go there.  Xander was after Spike, not looking for Anya, and Spike had no reason to go to Anya's apartment if he was supposed to be trying to find Angel.  In fact she had no idea where Xander would look for Spike; every place she could think of to look for the vampire, Xander wouldn't have known about.  

With one notable exception.

1630 Revello Drive.

Her steps slowed to a trudge, and then came to a standstill.  She didn't want to go home.  It didn't even feel like home anymore; it hadn't since the day she'd walked in the living room and found Joyce stretched out on the sofa, cold and alone and forever beyond her reach.  

Buffy had tried to feel a connection to the place for Dawn's sake.  She made sure the lawn was mowed and the flower boxes were weeded just like Joyce had done; she put a jack-o-lantern in the front window for Halloween and draped the garland over the banister at Christmas.  She even remembered to put out a flag for the Fourth of July, just like Joyce.  And when she got her first experience with paying property taxes she thought that, if anything, would give her a 'Scarlett-O'Hara-this-land-is-mine' kind of glow.  

But to this day, and more so with each passing day, the house felt like nothing more than a large clapboard albatross.  She wasn't even sure why anymore; it wasn't like there weren't some good memories there.  Life in Sunnydale hadn't been totally bad the past 7 years, even with all of the death and pain and death.  

It just hadn't been enough.  

She was tired of fighting memories at every turn, searching in vain for the good ones while she sucked in the bad.  The last few hours had given her glimpses of a way to face them all, lay them to rest, and finally move on with her life.

Instead, she had to go 'home,' and pretend it actually still felt like one.

* * * * *

Spike held his body perfectly still; only his eyes were alive in his set face.  He didn't need a superior sense of smell to sniff out the despair roiling off of Xander; the boy reeked of it.  And for the first time since he'd known Xander, Spike actually felt a small worm of fear when he faced the boy.  Buffy wouldn't easily forgive him killing this one, but he wasn't ready to shuffle off the immortal coil yet himself.

"I didn't kill her," he said roughly.  "I wouldn't."

"Like hell," Xander cut in sharply.  "You would, you did and now I'm going to return the favor.  With interest."

"Xander, no."  Willow grabbed Xander's arm and shook it hard.  "We're not here to fight."  

"In fact we shouldn't be here at all," Faith added quickly.  "We need to get out before the cops decide to check the place out."

Willow tore her eyes away from Xander to shoot her a bitter look.  "It's good to know some things never change.  You're still always looking out for number one."

"Hey," Faith snapped, "we're not in Cabot Cove anymore, Jessica.  You keep tripping over dead bodies and sooner or later the cops are gonna decide you're building your own obstacle course."  

The words were out of her mouth before she had a chance to think them through, but she felt an unaccustomed flare of guilt when she saw Xander flinch.  He was nowhere near ready to think of Anya as dead or as just a body.

"Xander, I'm sorry.  I mean I'm really sorry."  Faith took a step towards him, and would have taken more if Spike hadn't grabbed her arm.

"Leave him be," he warned her in a low voice.  "One touch and he'll go off like a rocket."

"Only at you," Xander promised.

"I didn't kill her," Spike said again, his frustration increasing with every repetition.  "We found her like this; ask Susie Slayer here."  

"You lying son of a bitch," Xander growled, just before he launched himself at Spike.

* * * * *

"Yo, Buffy!"  Gunn thrust one arm into the air and vigorously waved his hand.  "Over here!"

Buffy turned in the direction of his voice, and quickly crossed the street to meet him underneath a street lamp outside her favorite espresso bar.  

"Gunn," she greeted him breathlessly, "I need to find Xander; have you seen him?"

"Wish I had," he answered glumly.  "Some bad stuff started raining down after you left and..."

"I know," she broke in.  "Connor told us... me.  About Anya; he told me about Anya."

Three years working at a detective agency had served Gunn well; his keen eyes picked up details that would have completely gone over his head in the old days.  The flushed face, the eyes that wouldn't meet his, and a few well-placed wrinkles in her clothes that could have come from fighting vampires but also could have come from wrestling one particular vampire – it all added up to big-time trouble.

_Might as well take a shot and see what part struck bone._

"So where did Angel go?" he asked, watching her carefully. 

"Angel?" she echoed, in what she hoped sounded like the voice of innocence.  "Did he go out tonight too?  I asked him not to... I really ordered him, when you get right down to it, but he's never been exactly good at following orders.  Giving them, sure, but taking them?  That's so not Angel; I guess I should have remembered..." her voice trailed off as she looked into his brown eyes.  "And you're not buying a word of this, are you?"

Gunn swiped his hand over his shaved skull as he looked away; he hated to accuse her of lying but it seemed like there might be more trouble on the horizon if he let her try to bluff it out.  It's not like she was very good at the lying thing, he reflected.

"Look, Buffy," he began slowly.  "I don't want to get into your business, and I for sure don't want to get into Angel's, but it doesn't wash.  He's gone for hours, you're gone for hours, and if his clothes look anything like yours... ain't no way anybody's gonna believe you guys didn't run into each other."  He raised his eyebrows, trying to convey with his face and voice things he felt really uncomfortable talking about with Angel's not-so-ex ex.  "And we're talking some serious running into each other, if you know what I mean."

Buffy's brain went into overdrive, creating and discarding a series of explanations each more ridiculous than the last.  Obviously complete denial wasn't going to work, but the truth was equally unthinkable.  Somewhere in the middle there had to be a safe hiding place.

"We, well we were together," she hedged.  "He followed me and I, umm, I guess I felt guilty for trying to avoid him so much.  I mean he came to help me save the world and all, and I never even said thank you."  She shrugged and tried a weak smile on for size.  "So we talked and we..."

"Yeah, I got it," he said quickly.  There were some things about the big guy he really did not want to know.

"No, you don't."  She held up her hand and shook her head as she realized she had gone a little too far in painting her lie with shades of truth.  "Nothing happened.  I mean he tried but he couldn't... I mean we couldn't," she quickly corrected herself.  There was no need to give Angel a reputation as Viagra Vamp just to save her own skin.  "I was trying too, but there's just nothing left.  Nothing but a lot of memories."

Gunn frowned, trying to reconcile the vibes he'd been getting from Angel and even from Buffy with the story she was trying to spin.  Something didn't add up, but he couldn't figure out why she'd bother to lie to him, of all people, about her love life.  But if she was lying to him, there had to be a reason.

"You said you were looking for Xander; is Angel on the prowl too?"  _Time to change the subject before he choked on his shoelaces._

Buffy had a feeling Gunn didn't believe her, but she was grateful at least that he was letting the argument go.  

"He's, umm, looking for Spike.  Connor said Xander thought he was responsible for Anya's death, and with the whole super-powered nose thing he had a better chance of finding Spike than I do."

"So he's looking for Spike?  After you and he were..." he shook his head, "Oh man, the fangs are gonna fly."

"Yeah," she agreed glumly.  "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Way I remember it, most of my bad ideas seemed like good ones once upon a time."

"You too?" she sighed.

* * * * *

Faith caught Xander in mid-leap and hauled him back to earth before he managed to land his first punch.  He staggered as he landed and she reached out to steady him.

"Easy tiger.  I know he doesn't look like much next to a big guy like you, but he's wiry."

Xander snarled and threw his arm up to block her hand, although the gesture almost cost him his balance again.

"Just stay out of my way, Faith," he growled.

"I did you a favor, Harris," she protested.  "I'm not saying I couldn't take him, but you sure as hell can't."

"Watch me."

He lunged for Spike again, and this time Faith's fist on his chin sent him sprawling on the floor.

"Watch what?" Spike sniffed.  "You acting all big and he-man as you get Frick and Frack handed to you in a marble bag?  The girl may be kicking your ass, but she's still saving it.  Admit that and say 'thank you' like a good little boy."

"Just don't think I'm holding him back cause I've gone soft for you like B," Faith told the vampire with a sneer.  "I may have spent the last couple of years in prison... but I'm still not that desperate."

"Desperate comes when I turn you down, pet."

"And I'm for sure not doing the world any kind of favor by letting you live to bite another day."  She glanced over at Xander, who was slowly rising to his feet with Willow's help.  "I'm trying to keep the peace, that's all."

"Xander, don't do this," Willow said urgently.  "Killing Spike won't bring Anya back."

"Not exactly original," Spike allowed, "but true, very true."

He wasn't sure why he was egging the boy on so; maybe it was still the unaccustomed feeling of being blamed for something he actually hadn't done.  Or maybe it was that none of them thought he was capable of even being sorry Anya was gone.

Or maybe it was just that Xander has always annoyed the hell out of him and Anya being dead wasn't reason enough to start liking him.

* * * * *

Angel and Connor found it only too easy to track Spike and Faith; the trail began almost at the mansion's front door.  They moved swiftly and silently through the dark streets of Sunnydale, an uneasily united front.  

Connor periodically glanced over at his father when he was sure Angel wasn't looking, but he saw only the usual work-related intensity he had grown accustomed to.  No visible signs remained of the man he had seen a scant twenty minutes ago, the one tenderly comforting his former lover; it was as though that other Angel had only been a mirage or perhaps playing a scene from a film.

Except that Connor had seen the look in his father's eyes in the moment he first became aware of his audience, and he knew that for Angel it had been no game, no pretense.  The game came after, and it still continued, but in that moment life, and his father, had been all too real.

"Where are we going?" Connor asked abruptly.  "Do you even know?"

He wasn't really all that curious about their destination, but the silence was giving him too much time to think, and the tenor of his thoughts was unsettling.

"I'm not sure," his father answered with equal terseness.  "Business district, I think."

Connor took another quick sniff and glanced off to his left.  "Over there; they went down that way."

They turned down the alley Connor indicated and found themselves standing outside a boarded-up store.  Angel would have dismissed it as deserted if he hadn't heard the faint sounds of hearts beating and blood pulsing through human veins.

The raised voices were also a good clue.

"Wait," Angel said sharply, but softly, when Connor started to step in front of him.  "Give me a minute here to work this through."

Connor stared at him as though he were crazy.  "We ran all this way so we could just stand out here and listen to them kill each other?"

"That's the point – they're all in there and I'm not hearing any ripping or grinding sounds."  Angel frowned, his ears primed for the slightest sound of combat.  "But we followed Spike here from the mansion, which means he knows... he saw... things."

"He saw you with Buffy," Connor said flatly.

Angel met his eyes squarely.

"Probably.  But he can't know everything that happened."  He stressed each syllable of his next words, willing Connor to understand the trust he was placing in him with the utterance.  "It's not safe for him to know."

"Safe for who?"

He wasn't actually expecting an answer, and his father did not disappoint.  

"You go in and help Faith get them back to Buffy's.  I'll meet you there."  

Angel fought back the sudden flare of panic at the thought of willingly sending his boy into Spike's orbit.  Faith would protect him if necessary, as would Willow and even Xander; he had to believe they would or he wouldn't be able to let Connor out of his sight again.

"I got it," Connor answered.

"And Connor," Angel added slowly, "when you see Buffy and I there..."

"It will be the first time I've seen you in hours," Connor finished for him.  "I got that too."

Angel waited a moment longer, making sure Connor could see the expression in his eyes.  "Thank you, Connor."

"I... I'm not doing... you're welcome."

His father smiled slightly as he turned away.  "I guess you inherited my gift with words.  Sorry about that."

* * * * *

Willow was still hanging on his arm, and Faith was standing defensively in front of him, but Xander only had eyes for Spike.  He had to focus on the vampire because if he ever took his eyes off of Spike he would have to look at Anya and he couldn't look at Anya because she was... _oh god, she was dead and it was all his fault and even if Spike was the one who killed her it was still all his fault..._

Xander dropped to his knees and swayed, a low moan building in his throat as he stared at Anya's body sprawled on the floor before him.  Willow was on her knees next to him, her arms wrapped tightly around him, but no matter how close she got to him she could never take away the coldness that washed from Anya's lifeless body to his.

"Xander, I'm here," she was whispering over and over again in his ear.  "I'm here and I'll always be here for you just like you were there for me when I needed you.  We'll get through this honey; I swear we will."

Faith looked helplessly at Spike.  He was the last person, or demon, on earth she wanted to depend on, but at the moment she was pretty much down to that last.  Xander was lost in his grief, not even conscious of the rest of the world.  Willow was only concerned with Xander, which was sweet and kind and hearts and flowery but it wasn't a help to anyone else but him, if it was even a help to him right now.

That left Spike.

"We have got to get out of here," she said in a low, urgent voice.  "You broke the door, and we're not too far from where Rona was killed; the cops must be all over this neighborhood at night."

"I'm all for getting out, but what do we do with him?"  He nodded at Xander.  "I could pick him up and carry him, but that might be just the teensiest bit obvious, don't you think?"

"Not to mention the part where he'd try to stake you in the back," she agreed.  "Then I'd get stuck carrying him."

Faith had thought their voices were low enough to go unheard by the super power-deprived, but Xander quickly proved her wrong.  Her words had barely touched air before he was shaking off Willow's sheltering arm and springing to his feet.

"The only one getting carried out of here is him," he glared at Spike, "in a baggie."

"I don't want to hurt you," the vampire responded calmly, "but I will."

"What more can you do to me?"

"And how many pieces can I break you into as you try?" Connor asked from the doorway.

* * * * *

"I'm home," Buffy called as she and Gunn walked in the door.  "Has anyone heard from... oof," she finished with a grunt as Dawn threw herself at her big sister.

"Anya's dead," Dawn whimpered into Buffy's shoulder.  "We don't know how, but..."

"Shh, I know, I know."  Buffy gently stroked Dawn's long brown hair as she led her sister back into the living room from whence she had come.  "Gunn told me."

"What about Angel?" Andrew asked with bright-eyed curiosity.  "Did he find you too?"

Buffy met his gaze steadily, hoping that her attempt at evasion would be better disguised in the usual chaos and confusion of her living room.  "Was he looking for me?"

"We thought..." Fred began, "that is Spike thought... or maybe it was Cordelia."  She frowned at the memory; it seemed like Cordelia's name had come up a little too often in connection with trouble these days.  "Anyway we, umm, thought that maybe you two needed to talk, or, well, something."

Andrew nodded vigorously and leaned forward, resting an elbow on each knee and his chin upon his folded hands.  "My bet was on 'or something.'  So was Spike's."

"I know; Gunn told me that too."  She glanced over at Wesley, momentarily putting aside her covert ops in favor of more immediate concerns.  "Has anyone heard from Xander?"

"Not yet.  We were rather hoping you were he."

She smiled crookedly and stroked Dawn's down-turned head.  "I've been 'he' before, Wes.  I wouldn't go back there for the world."

* * * * *

"Okay, that's it," Willow snapped.  "I have had it with all the Y-chromosomes on parade here, and I'm not just saying that because I'm an X-woman myself.  We have to focus on what's important here, and that's Anya."  She glanced at the young man standing next to her, seeing instead the little boy he had been, the boy she'd known almost all her life.  "And Xander."

"Now we've hit scary time, folks; Willow and I are on the same side."  Faith impatiently pushed her hair off of her face and considered their options.  "Look, we have to call the police... assuming they aren't already on their way here thanks to all the noise and all the people coming in here.  Unfortunately that someone has got to be Xander, but it should be from Buffy's house."

"Wait, why Xander?"  Willow knew Xander was almost at the end of his rope; she wasn't sure if he could take any more.

"You want the list?  I'm on the lam, you've already played witness for the prosecution once this week, and Spike and Connor don't exist on paper." 

"I exist," Spike protested.  "I just have a date of death after my name, that's all."

"Well, then I guess there's no worries there," she scoffed.

"The police aren't going to suspect me," Willow protested.  "Why would they think that I could kill any..." Warren's face flashed through her mind, the way it did in her nightmares.  "I mean I had no reason to hurt Anya," she mumbled uncomfortably.

"Will, never mind."  Xander stopped to clear his throat; his first words had barely made it past the aching ball in his esophagus.  "I can do it."

His voice was hoarse, and his face had grown haggard in just a few short hours, but the eyes that met Willow's were steady and sane once again.  He still wasn't completely Xander yet... he might never be the Xander she knew again... but he had regained control of what was left.

"Let's go," Connor said quickly.  "I can hear sirens."

* * * * *

Buffy tried to take Xander in her arms as soon as he came in the door, but he shook off her embrace without a word.  She took an awkward step backwards as the others filed into the hallway and spilled over into the living room.

"Xander, I'm..." she struggled with the inadequacy of words against grief, "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

He regarded her in silence for a moment, as though not quite sure who she was or why she thought she had some claim on him.  Once upon a time he had thought she was the most beautiful and exotic girl he'd ever met; he would have done anything to help her, or just to be with her.  And then he met Anya, and he learned the difference between a schoolboy romance and the kind that lasted forever.

The kind that was _supposed_ _to last_ forever.

"A little late for apologies, don't you think?" he finally said.  "Where were you when Anya needed a hand?  Where was the last best hope for humanity when my girl needed someone to save her?"

Buffy knew there was no real answer to his question, even if she'd known when Anya died.  She remembered the first hours, the days and weeks that followed Angel's descent to hell; she had castigated herself a million times for not getting to the mansion sooner, for not finding Jenny's spell sooner, for not learning about the curse sooner... for being at all times two steps behind the future she'd had no way to predict.  Grief was the one emotion she could truly say she knew and understood.

She really hated that about her life.

"I know you're looking for someone to blame right now," she said carefully.  "As many someone's as possible, probably."  She bit her lip to hide the faint tremble.  "I understand."  

"You don't understand jack," he said bitterly.  "You haven't for years.  She's dead; Anya's dead.  And you want to know why?  You really want to know?"

"Xander," Angel broke in, "why don't you come sit down and..."

Xander heard only a dull buzzing in his ear instead of Angel's words; he couldn't hear anything, see anything, acknowledge any reality but that of Anya's cold body stretched out in the ruins of the store she loved.

"She died because we were all too busy to realize she was missing.  Because we were chasing some stupid end-of-the-world demons instead of trying to keep the people in that world from ending.  Because we were chasing vampires and not catching them in time."

"How many times do I have to tell you I didn't kill her?" Spike growled.  

"Her neck's broken," Faith interjected.  "Just like Rona."

"Do we have to do this now?" Dawn begged.  

She nodded at Xander, too worried to make an attempt at any adult form of subtlety.  Unfortunately with this crowd, even pointing and waving wasn't going to draw any attention her way tonight.

"There's fingerprints on Anya's neck," Spike objected.  "You saw them yourself."

Connor ranged himself next to Angel in an unplanned show of unity.  He wasn't sure why he felt like his father needed an ally at this moment, and there was no way he was going to examine why he thought he should be it.  He just moved as he felt directed, and hoped it wasn't another gigantic setup.

"What do the fingerprints mean?" Connor asked his father.  

Spike answered instead.  "Snapping a neck is a breeze for a vampire – we don't leave marks because we don't have to grip that hard.  I wouldn't leave prints; neither would Angel.  Neither would she," he added, jerking his head at Faith, "more than likely.  Takes a human to need to get hold that tight."

"Good point," Gunn allowed, more than a little unwillingly.  He had really liked Spike for this murder; not only did it make sense, but it would have straightened out a lot of badness for a lot of people too.

Faith crossed her arms over her chest; she didn't look pleased either.  "Rona didn't have any prints on her neck."  

"Better point," Angel said grimly.  

Buffy's eyes widened as she realized the direction the conversation was turning.  No matter what logic told her, no matter what anyone else had said, she hadn't allowed herself to believe that Spike had killed Rona.  She couldn't.  No matter what she thought, or knew, him to be capable of, she couldn't let herself believe he killed Rona because that would mean she had really, in effect, killed the girl.  Rona would have died in the name of Buffy's silent war, a pawn sacrificed for the so-called 'greater good,' without even being aware she was in play.

"This isn't the time for this," she said quickly.  "We're all in shock... especially Xander... and we're not thinking clearly."

"Color me unleaded crystal," Xander said in a low voice.  "He killed Rona and then he killed Anya, and the only reason there's any differences is because he wanted to throw us off track."

"He's not that bright," Angel growled.  He had underestimated the amount of control he was going to have to exercise to keep from adding Spike to the body count the minute he saw him again; he was already one aching long aching nerve and having to defend Spike wasn't helping the situation.  "I'm sorry about Anya, Xander; I really know how hard this must be for you.  But I've known Spike a long time and he hasn't got that kind of planning in him."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dad," Spike grumbled.  

"Don't call me 'Dad'," his sire snapped back.  "And don't think I'm letting you off the hook for Rona."

Willow had had enough of all of them, with their expressions of sympathy only brief preludes to a symphony of blame.

"You can fight this out later; Xander needs to rest."  

Xander started to follow her lead, and then stopped as a memory tugged at his foggy brain.  "I need to call," he said hoarsely.  "Faith said I have to call the police so they can find her," his face twisted as he struggled with the word, "body."

"We'll call them in a few minutes," Willow promised.  

She motioned to Dawn to hold his other arm, and between the two of them they guided Xander into the dark dining room he'd lately been calling home.

As soon as Dawn had pulled the louvered doors closed behind them, Angel turned on Spike.

"Do you think you could stop thinking about your own neck for the two seconds it would take to show the man some sympathy?" he snarled at his childe.  "You're supposed to be so soulful these days; why not at least try to pass for human?"

Spike had been maintaining what he felt was admirable control of his emotions, doing the others the favor of not letting on when they scored a direct hit.  But enough was enough; he would never be beaten down by any man in the name of love again, least of all his worthless bleeding heart of a sire.

"Always Angel to the bloody rescue," Spike sneered.  "Surprised you could tear yourself away from the slayer... my slayer," he emphasized, "long enough to bother this time, though."

The words hit Angel like a blow.  The fury he felt at seeing Spike smug and secure, knowing what the vampire had done to make Buffy so much less than secure in her own right, shattered when he realized that Spike must be on to Buffy's ruse.  Her safety, and her successful reclamation of her life, depended on Spike believing she had feelings for him and not Angel.  

For one instant, it all hung in the balance.

"I'm here because of Buffy," Angel said slowly, taking special care not to look at her as he answered.  "No matter what passed between us, I won't let you hurt the people she cares about."

"Yeah, I know what passed between you mate, but you can skip any pet names she might have for it, if you don't mind."

"Spike, you don't know what you're talking about," Buffy broke in.  "I don't know where you got this idea that Angel and I..."

Spike jerked his head at Angel.  "I'll wager he knows where I got it."

Angel slowly nodded; the mind behind his calm dark eyes feverishly weighing each word before it was allowed breath.  "Spike was at the mansion tonight," he said, his gaze fixed on his angry childe much like a snake charmer focused on a python.  "He saw some things, but obviously he didn't see everything or he wouldn't be so ticked off."

Spike snorted; he wasn't about to fall for some line this time, least of all when it was delivered for Buffy by her ever-loving Angel.  "So you're going to try having a whelp with some slayer blood in him this time, Angelus?  Sorry I missed that part, but at least I caught the opening act."

"Spike, nothing happened," Buffy insisted.

"Save the report card for him, Buffy."  Spike sneered at his sire.  "I already know who the high scorer is."

Angel's hands clenched into fists; Buffy saw them an instant before his arms started to rise, headed for Spike's head.  She had known this ruse was going to push Angel to the breaking point; she just hadn't expected meltdown to occur quite so fast.  She had to cool things off, and she had to do it now, in the only surefire way she knew.

_Get the hell out._

Buffy raised her hand as she darted between the two snarling vampires.  "Can I say something here?"

"What?" they demanded in unison.

"Goodbye."

She started towards the door, intent on putting distance between herself and everyone she was currently feeling the urge to pound on before impulse control became the dream that once was.  Wesley, however, had endured one melodramatic exit too many.

"Buffy, wait!" he called after her.

She ignored him, just as she had ignored him so many times in the days when he was her Watcher.  But even though she appeared to be stuck in the past, Wesley had grown up since then.

"I said stop!"

Slowly she turned on her heel.

"Actually you said 'wait'," she corrected him in a dangerously pleasant tone of voice.  

"Fine," he agreed crisply.  "But since you chose to ignore me, I'm allowed a change of phrase."

"Change anything you like."  Buffy turned again and headed towards the door.  "Your mind, your socks, your sexual preference... it's your call."

"Buffy!"

It was too late; the door closed with a faint, but definite, slam.

"That's it," Wesley growled.  "I refuse to allow one more person to walk out before I finish a sentence.  I have something to say and I will say it if I have to..."

"English," Gunn interrupted, "shouldn't you be savin' all that righteous indignation for the one who made it over the wall?"

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Angel said tentatively.  "She's not really herself right now and..."

"She's exactly herself, Angel."  Cordelia smiled brightly, challenging him to contradict her.  "First the heartfelt moment, then up come the walls and out goes the slayer.  She's the same Buffy she's always been; that's what so right about her."  

"I told you I had something to tell her, and now I'm going to do it," Wesley said firmly.  "And if I have to tie her down to get her to listen to me, so be it."

"Won't do you much good," Spike drawled.  "Ropes won't hold her, trust me."  He could see the rage still simmering just beneath the surface of Angel's otherwise calm face; it fed his own anger and spurred him on.  "No, what you need is a nice pair of handcuffs and some chains.  I've got some I know she..."

"Enough!"  Angel's voice cracked through the air like a whip, startling even the one who'd been provoking him.  "You," he nodded jerkily at Wesley, "go after her.  And you," he glared at Spike, "go somewhere I can't see you."

Spike drew back sharply.  "I live here," he protested.  "You're the one piddling on my doorstep."

Angel turned away sharply, putting his back to Spike as he stared blindly at the curtain-covered front window.  He'd thought from the beginning that at least part of Spike's obsession with Buffy had been one more of his endless attempts to one-up his sire.  Now he knew for sure.

"Nice, very nice," he muttered under his breath.  "Good to know you can still count on some things in this world."

* * * * *

Buffy had paused on the porch to take a deep breath; it was a tactical error she had cause to regret when she heard the door opening behind her.

"See ya, Wes!" she called, not checking over her shoulder to make sure she'd guessed correctly.  Time was of the essence if she wanted to make good her escape.

"Buffy, stop!"

Once again he'd managed to push her buttons; she paused on the bottom step.  "You know you really need to stop doing that, Wes."

"Please," he added gently.

She sighed as she turned around, but she still didn't move back up onto the porch.

"I have places to go, Wesley," she explained.  "I'm not just bailing."

"Places that can't wait ten minutes?"

She placed a hand lightly on the porch railing.  "I have to go tell Robin I won't be in to work tomorrow.  I want to be here for Xander."

And to keep Xander from attacking Spike and Spike from attacking Angel and Angel from attacking Spike, but that part was none of Wesley's business.  At least that's what she'd tell herself to keep from nodding off on her watch tonight.

"You can't call him?"

"I have some other... workish things to remind him about," she said evasively, "and I want to do it in person."  

Odds were Robin understood by now that Angel was off limits along with Spike, but he seemed to be making a second career out of testing her limits.  She needed to be sure they were 100% clear this time.

"I wouldn't ask if it weren't important," he said gently.

"Sounded more like you were telling than asking."

"I was your Watcher," he reminded her.  "Telling was part of the package."

"It was," she agreed.  "But I'm not that little girl anymore."  She smiled wryly.  "I graduated, remember?"

"Vividly."

"I'm the one responsible for training slayers now."

"That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about."  He gestured to the chairs on the porch.  "Please."

She wavered for a moment, and then decided she probably owed this one, for all the times she'd tuned him out without a second thought.  Slowly she climbed the steps and sat down, although she made a point of choosing the chair next to the one he had indicated.

"Okay, Wes, what's the dire on the horizon?  Besides the fact that my people are being murdered, there's an escaped convict in the same house as my little sister and the first be-all end-all evil is wearing every dead person I've ever known as a Mardi Gras mask?"

Wesley chose his words carefully.  He knew enough about Buffy to realize that he had just this one chance to get through to her before the world went to hell.

"You feel responsible for all of that, don't you?  You're the one who has to hold it all together, show the others the way.  Am I right?"

She cocked her head and stared at him.  "Well there's a 'duh' waiting to be born."

He tried again.  "Buffy, you are the Slayer."

"Boy, you're on fire tonight, aren't you?"  She stood up.  "And now that we've settled who I am and what I do..."

"To be precise," he interrupted her loudly, "we've settled that you are not doing what you're supposed to be doing."

"Excuse me?"

She was giving him a look that said he was still breathing only because she was feeling generous, and even though Faith's reaction had been considerably milder, Wesley could hardly blame Buffy for her anger.  Given all that she had endured along this wrong pathway, he was actually a little surprised she'd let him remain standing.

"You are the Slayer," he repeated patiently.  "I realize that Giles allowed you a great deal of latitude in your training and I'm not," he held up a hand to forestall the protest he knew was coming, "taking issue with that.  It took me a long time to realize there was more to training a slayer than what the Council had to offer, but eventually the message got through."

"Well hallelujah for that," she said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.  "Can I go now?"

"A slayer works alone," he continued as though she'd never spoken.  "And before you protest this comment as well, let me clarify it for you.  A slayer is not a bandleader.  Your friends, by this point in time, would continue to fight even if you were not there; they've proven that.  But those girls... those children you call your army..."

"I never called them an army," she protested.  "Okay, maybe once or... well, twice tops.  No more than that."

"A slayer is not meant to lead an army."  His voice grew more strident as she continued to miss his point.  "She works alone, she fights alone..."

"She dies alone.  Got it."  She dropped back down into her chair.  "Really, really got that one."

"For all the special skills and innate abilities your heritage has gifted you with..."

"Gift!" she snorted.

"... leadership is not one of them."  Wesley drew a deep breath; this was going worse than he'd thought it would.  He was amazed that it had actually been easier to get through to Faith.  "There is nothing in the centuries of slayers before you, whose memories you carry deep within you, to prepare you for leading anyone anywhere at any time am I making myself clear?"

"Well, yeah," she stammered, taken aback as much by the frustration in his voice as much as by the staccato blow of his words.  "Except for the part where I've been doing it for almost seven years now.  That you've kind of skipped over."

"I skipped over it because it has nothing to do with you being a slayer; that was actually the point."

"Now you've lost me," she admitted.

Wesley sank down into the chair next to her, gripping the arms tightly as he searched for the right words.

"Buffy, you are an extraordinarily charismatic person.  It is a trait you share with Angel, actually, and what has enabled the two of you to inspire such loyalty from your friends."

She bit her tongue, holding back a sharp comment on Wesley's definition of loyalty when it came to Angel.  However angry she was on Angel's behalf, and however sharp an eye she was going to keep on Wesley from here on out... assuming there was a 'here on out,' of course... Angel had apparently forgiven him.  She had to respect that, even if she thought he was setting himself up for a bigger fall.

"But that charisma comes from your human soul," Wesley continued, oblivious to her inner dialogue.  "It has nothing to do with your slayer heritage; in fact the two have been in direct conflict since you were called.  If Giles hadn't allowed you so much time to indulge in your 'normal life' endeavors, I doubt you would have been able to command the following you have enjoyed all these years."

"Following?" she echoed in disbelief.  "Check your manifesto at the door, Ted; they're my friends.  We don't sell flowers at the airport; in spite of what you saw at breakfast the other day, I'm usually 'Go protein! Girl'; and any Doomsday prophecies that are hanging over our heads are so not my fault.  We're not a cult; they're my friends." She repeated firmly.

"And slayers do not have friends.  They also do not have armies, or groupies or whatever you would like to call those young ladies currently inhabiting your second floor."

"Isn't it a little late for the slayer solo?" she sighed.  "My friends are here, the SITs are here, my sister is here.  No one is going anywhere... in fact I'm pretty sure no one will ever move out of this house.  Ever," she repeated grimly.  "Deal with it, Wes.  Put aside all that Council brainwashing and deal."

"You are the one who needs to 'deal', Buffy.  You need to make a choice, once and for all, about whom you want to be.  I don't know if a slayer working alone can defeat the First, but I do know that _the Slayer leading an army into battle is doomed to failure."_

"That's crazy," she said flatly, ignoring the icy shiver his words had given her.  Slayers had prophetic dreams, she told herself, not Watchers, and especially not ex-Watchers.

"You may survive the battle," he allowed.  "Some of your companions may survive.  But you won't defeat the First, not as the Slayer leading an army."

"So I'm supposed to go in there by myself?  Did you flunk Battle Plans 101, Wes?  I discarded that one months ago."

"Lead them as Buffy Summers, not the Slayer.  Talk to them, get to know them, let them into your life before you ask them to risk theirs for you."

"We've bonded over punching bags, okay?  We're fine."  Resolutely she turned off the memory his words called to mind, of Amanda's tirade the night before, and the way no one, not one of them, had denied her claims.  "And anyway, when did you jump off the Council bandwagon?  You were a walking Slayer manual when you got here."

"That was over 4 years ago," he answered with some difficulty.  "And I was wrong."

She stared at him, nonplussed.  "Boy, that had to hurt, but you didn't even stutter.  I'm impressed."

"I don't want you to be impressed, Buffy; I just want you to listen.  Your human gifts are so much stronger than your slayer ones, and Giles is to be credited for realizing that so soon and allowing you to develop them.  But somewhere along the way you seem to have lost touch with that side of yourself, and it is putting everyone in danger.  Everyone."

"I can't win with you, can I?  First I'm not serious enough about being the slayer, and now I'm too serious.  I should keep my friends at arm's length... but wait, no; we're supposed to go marching into battle hand-in-hand."  She threw up her hands in defeat.  "Would you please find an opinion and commit to it?  Own that emotion."

Wesley rubbed one tired, slightly trembling hand over his eyes.  He wasn't getting through to her; no matter how hard he tried she couldn't get past the mistakes he had made when they first met.  More likely, she still hadn't forgiven him for the night before her graduation when the Council, and he as a representative of it, had almost let Angel die in the name of the greater good.  He could still see the shock and disillusionment in her eyes when he told her that the Council had refused to help; why should he believe four short years would erase it from her memory when it was seared into his own?

"Buffy, I realize I didn't give you much reason to trust my judgment in the past."  His hand fell away from his face, leaving him exposed to her wary gaze.  "And perhaps you've heard enough of... more recent events... to once again have cause to doubt me."

"You could say that."  With some difficulty, Buffy wrenched her thoughts away from all that Fred had told her of Connor's kidnapping, and tried to focus on the relationship she had seen for herself between Wesley and Angel.  "Wesley, I'm sure you meant well with this little self-help session, but really, I've got it covered.  I've been doing the slayer thing for quite a while now, and most nights I make it out alive."

"But what about the others?" he asked flatly.  "You can be the Slayer you were born to be, or be the human being you were born to be, but please, you must stop trying to be both.  Following that path will lead you... all of you... to disaster, not away from it."

* * * * *

"Psst, Fredelicious, I need to talk to you."

Fred's hand stopped just shy of the water glass on the third shelf that she'd been aiming for.  The tension in the living room showed no signs of abating, and she'd thought no one would notice her slipping out to get an aspirin.  In fact, she'd been fairly sure she could have slipped out to hire a marching band, and brought it back to rehearse in the driveway, without anyone paying attention to her.

Apparently, she'd underestimated her effect on a room.

"Lorne," she asked with a frown, "why are you whispering?"

Lorne glanced over his shoulder before he slipped into the kitchen and pushed the door closed behind him.  "The real question is, why aren't you?"

"Umm, because I wasn't talking to anyone before you came in?" she guessed.  "I mean people look at me kind of funny when I talk in a normal voice as it is.  But if I was in here whispering to myself..." she cocked her head and gave the matter serious consideration.  "Well I suppose they might think I was talking to someone invisible, or maybe someone who just slipped through a portal to another dimension."  That way led to bad thoughts though, so she hastily veered to greener pastures.  "Or maybe I was talking, I mean whispering, to a time traveler who just..."

"I give."  Lorne held up his hands in surrender.  "Uncle."

As usual, Fred's ramblings had carried her far afield from where she'd begun, and the return trip always seemed to take longer.  "You give which uncle?"

"I'll give them all to you if you'll let me whisper my piece," he promised.  "I'm worried about Cordy."

Fred immediately sat down at the table and patted the chair next to her.  "Something's wrong with Cordy?"

"You must have noticed; she hasn't been herself in, let's see... days, weeks, no, months."

Fred had noticed changes, but when she was suddenly confronted with the idea coming from someone else she was reluctant to admit anything that might seem disloyal.

"She's having a baby, Lorne; that's got to change, well, everything.  Her body, her plans for the future, her..."

"Soul?  Because that's what I'm thinking has changed."

"What do you mean her soul has changed?  She's gotten a little... umm, snappy sometimes... but I think that's just the hormones talking."

Lorne patted her hand as he shook his head.  "It's not hormones, kittenkins; it's the whole kit and kaboodle.  She feels... different; I can't explain it any better than that without getting her to sing.  And believe me, I've tried to get her to sing but she refuses."

Fred stared at the green hand resting over her own; it was easier to focus on Lorne's ruby red nails than the knowing eyes of the same hue.

"She won't sing?" she asked in a small voice.  "But Cordy loves to sing.  She's not, well, she's not really good at it, but she loves to do anything that feels like performing."

"I know," he agreed, waggling his eyebrows to emphasize the significance of his revelation.  

"But that's just one little thing."  Desperately she raised her head to confront him, and refute his arguments, face to face.  "Maybe her throat hurts, or maybe she's really emotional right now because of the baby or..."

"And what about that baby?" Lorne broke in.  "The one she's having with Angel's son... and don't tell me it's not just the tiniest bit weird to go from changing a baby to making babies with him?"

"Lorne!"  Fred's admonishment was little more than a strangled whisper as she threw a panicked look at the door leading to the living room.  "She might hear you."

Lorne ignored her concern for Cordy's finer feelings, though he did lower his voice to a tone just barely audible to Fred's human ears. 

"A few months ago I would have bet good money it was Angel-cakes she was all aglow over.  In fact I did... but that's neither here nor there," he hastily added.  "The point is, even if she was feeling a little fickle that week, she picked a pretty strange also-ran to ride off on."

Fred winced and rubbed her forehead.  "Can we not do the horse metaphors, please?" she begged.  

Lorne squeezed the hand he still held.  "Sugar pop, I just think something's not right with our girl.  And I don't know who else to talk to about it.  Even if Angel wasn't all tied up with this end of the world thing, not to mention his ex and her why, he can't see clearly when it comes to Cordelia.  She's his oldest friend; they've shared things no one else has shared with him.  And after Angel-face's little Darla-induced tantrum a few years back, Gunn and Wesley have their own bond with the lady.  We won't even touch on Connor," he finished with a shake of his head.

"No, Connor would definitely be my last choice too."  Fred heaved a huge sigh, feeling it drag upward through her body with nothing but gloom in its wake.  "But what good can I do?"

Lorne leaned forward, his red eyes alight with all the fervor of a demon with a plan.  

"Get her to sing."

Fred stared at him in confusion.  "But you just said she won't."

"Not for me, not in front of me.  But if you could get Cordy to sing, or even hum, and you caught it on tape... why then we'd have something to take to the bank.  Or in this case, Angel."

"You want me to wear a wire?  But she's our friend," Fred protested.  She pulled her hand free of Lorne's and stuffed both of them in her lap, trying to hide the way they automatically clenched into fists from the tension.  "Even if she's acting a little strange, and, umm, maybe a little mean sometimes, it still seems like we're carrying things too far if we dragnet her."

"Most innocent of all Fred's, have you forgotten that we're already standing on the edge of an apocalypse?  How much further can we carry anything?"

"Something just doesn't feel right about this," she sighed.  "I hate being sneaky; it never brings me anything but trouble."

"That's because you're a good, honest person, and that's why we love you."  Lorne smiled reassuringly at her.  "And that's also why Cordy would never suspect you were trying to set her up, don't you see?"

Fred tried to think of another way to test Lorne's theory without being dishonest, but nothing was springing to her award-winning brain.  As much as she hated the idea, the only way to prove Lorne wrong, and prove that Cordy was all right, was to take the demon's path.

"All right," she gave in with a grimace.  "I'll do it.  But don't expect me to be any good at the spy stuff," she warned.  "When we used to play 'Scarecrow and Mrs. King,' I always had to be Amanda's mother.  I couldn't even make third graders who ate mud pies believe I was a spy."

"Oh sweetie, I'd let you heat up my cold war any day," Lorne consoled her.  "Now how soon can you get to work on Operation Sing Sting?"

* * * * *

To Be Continued TC \l2 "


End file.
